Starlight
by idon'tedit
Summary: Begins in the forest during New Moon. Follows cannon for good portions, but wanders substantially from it in others. Bella is abducted, but survives, by a serial killer, which changes her life drastically. What all will change.
1. Chapter 1

**Authors note- if you are one of my loyal readers you will recognize parts of this story as it progresses. I have taken pieces from a story that I had posted under the title of Moon Rising, there was too much editing that needed to be done there, with too many parts that I wanted to do away with to simply edit that story, so I am starting from scratch.**

The trees were closing in on me as his words finally sunk in. He was leaving, and he didn't want me to come with him. More than that he was telling me that he didn't love me that he never had, this had been some sort of game, but now he was tired of playing. I couldn't think of any words, my mind simply ground to a halt. I could hear him telling me it would be as if he never existed, but it was like hearing him through water. The words seemed distorted and distant, as if my mind refused to understand them.

He reached out to hold onto my arms, and I honestly thought he might kiss me. I let my eyes drift closed as I felt his cold lips on my forehead, but that was a mistake. The wind glancing off my face was my only hint to his departure. I opened my eyes and tried to track where he went, but the movements of the ferns in front of me were already stopping, erasing any clue as to where he was. Without thinking I started moving forward.

I called out for him as I wandered deeper into the forest to no avail. I knew in the back of my mind that he was gone, and that I was searching for something I would never find, but I couldn't stop trying. If I stopped trying to find him it would really be over. My body was struggling to let me continue on. I was shaking, but I couldn't tell you if it were due to the cold or what had just happened. As the forest grew darker I began to stumble. I kept pulling myself up, ignoring the dirt caking on my jeans and the rocks starting to dig into my palms. But when I tripped over a tree root in the near pitch black of the forest I stayed down.

I knew it was time to surrender. He wasn't coming back, and I wasn't going to magically find him. As I finally let that sink in I lost my grip. I stopped seeing the world around me. I stopped feeling anything. I didn't feel the dirt under my face, or the tree root pushing into my back. I didn't feel the rain that I could hear hitting my coat. All I could feel was a void blanket pressing down on me, drowning everything underneath it.

I don't know how long I lay there on the forest floor. I don't know if I slept, or if I was just simply there. I could hear the rain falling on me for what could have been hours or days or maybe just minutes I couldn't tell anymore. At some point I started to hear the forest animals coming to life. There was an owl in a tree near by, and I couldn't help but think that his low mournful cry was in response to watching me. I heard an animal whose size I couldn't determine sniffing around near me, but I felt no fear about what it might due.

As I let my mind take in more sounds I realized I could hear peoples voices. They weren't near by, and I wasn't sure what I was hearing them say, and I didn't really care to know why they were in the forest when it was so dark out.

I hovered on the edge of my nonsleep for a while longer before the voices drew close enough for me to understand what they were saying. I could hear several different voices calling out for me. Somewhere in my mind I knew I should respond to them, but I couldn't find my voice anywhere. I heard the animal snuffling again, and I was fairly certain now that the animal was right next to me. The logical part of my brain that was barely even awake told me that this was unsafe, but I couldn't bring myself to worry. The sound eventually faded. Perhaps the animal thought I was already dead.

"Bella?" a deep voice said above me from somewhere near by,

This was different from all the calls I had heard before. This was recognition of having found me. I should have said something to the man, or even looked at him, but I simply continued to lie on the forest floor.

"Okay," the voice said in a confused tone, and then I felt a breeze and a redistribution of my weight that I took to mean he had picked me up.

I should have been upset that some unknown man had picked me up, and could be taking me to God knows where. Perhaps there was truly nothing that mattered to me anymore. The man continued to carry me, and as he moved the other voices grew nearer to me.

"I've got her," the man called out, and the other cries of my name died off.

After a few seconds I was surrounded by many voices. They were all asking different questions, so I stopped listening to them. Through the chaos I heard Charlie's voice moving closer to me.

"I'll take her," I heard him say in a hoarse voice before my weight was being shifted.

I wanted to tell him to put me down. That I would walk so he wasn't straining himself to carry me, but again I could not find my voice. I wasn't sure I would be able to walk if I tried anyway. I felt Charlie mount the steps, and soon I was laying on a flat surface. I didn't want to open my eyes, but I was fairly certain I was now lying on the couch. Blankets were piled on top of me, and then I two fingers on the inside of my wrist.

"Bella, can you open your eyes for me?" an unfamiliar voice asked me, and surprisingly I obliged.

I saw a vaguely familiar doctor in front of me, and my heart panged at the recognition that it wasn't Carlisle. He was just another reminder of the family who had abandoned me. I followed the penlight like he asked me, and let him take my temperature, but I never spoke to him.

"She appears to be semi catatonic, but she is technically healthy." The man said. "She should rest, and I will come see her again in the morning."

"Thank you Dr. Gerandy," Charlie said softly as I let myself slip under the blanket void again.

I surfaced from the strange void to a certain extent sometime the next morning. I could see and hear what was going on around me, but I still didn't care. I was self aware enough to pull myself off the couch in the living room, and drag myself upstairs and into my bedroom. I barely made it onto the bed before I fell back into my blackened stupor.

Occasional thoughts would float through my mind, but they were far too painful to let them set in. As quickly as thoughts of Edward could flutter to the front of my mind I would smash them down and force my mind back into the darkness.

I was somewhat aware that people were coming in and out of the room, but I didn't respond to the dulcet voices that hovered somewhere above me. At some point I was aware that Dr. Gerandy had returned, but I didn't listen to hear him tell Charlie what he thought about my condition. It must not have been very important though because he never seemed to return. Charlie came in off an on, and I didn't really speak to him either. He seemed upset, so when he sat with a tray of soup I robotically forced myself to eat it.

At some point it seems my silence became too much for Charlie. The high-pitched worried voice of Renee settling into the sheets around me. Her face would float in between the ceiling, and mine but I paid her little mind. I was struggling to win the battle with completely silencing the painful thoughts; so easing the minds of those around me was of little worry to me.

I had stopped tracking my days, but it seemed I had been sprawled out in the same clothes I had been wearing in the forest that day for five days now. At least that was what Renee said as she pulled me out of bed and forced me to start shuffling towards the bathroom. She started the shower, and started pulling me clothes off, with little regard to my grumbled protests.

She forced me into the shower, and between the shock of the cold water, and the lack of support I had to wake up enough to hold myself up on my own. Renee pulled the sliding glass door closed, and told me she'd be waiting in my bedroom, and clothes would be waiting for me on the sink when I got out. I stumbled blindly through my shower, shocked by how foreign all of the actions felt to me.

I finished my nearly ice cold shower and threw on the sweat pants and tank top that Renee had left for me on the sink. After I pulled my hair into a messy bun I shuffled back to my room. I was awake but I wasn't feeling any emotions, until I crossed the threshold of my room and saw my parents packing my things into two large black suite cases. A fiery anger broke through the fog that was my life, and burst forth without my control.

"Put my things down!" I screamed at them as I ran into the room.

"Calm down Bella," Renee said calmly, trying to continue packing my things.

"What do you think you're doing?" I yelled as I began ripping my clothes from their hands and throwing them on the floor.

"We're packing your things," Renee said as if she were explaining something to a confused old woman.

"I can see that," I growled. "Why are you doing it?"

"You're going to Florida to stay with your mother," Charlie said gruffly from the other side of the room.

"I absolutely am not!" I screamed at him, grabbing the clothes from his hands and throwing them on the bed. "Stop touching my things! I'm not going anywhere!"

"Being here isn't good for you," Charlie said softly. "You've practically been in a coma for days Bella."

"I won't leave," I said quietly, and then too my horror I felt the tears coming. "I w-w-w-want to stay here."

I collapsed on my bedroom floor and let the sobs take me. I tried to focus in on what my parents were saying, as I was sure it was important to my fate, but I couldn't stop the tears that were wracking through my entire body. Renee helped me into bed, and covered me up. It seemed that the discussion was over for now.


	2. Chapter 2

After the tantrum, I tried to straighten up and fly right for Charlie. After two days of actually trying, getting out of bed, and interacting to a certain extent with my parents, my mother decided it was safe for her to go back to Florida without me. I stayed at the house when Charlie drove her up to Port Angeles to catch her flight, so I was free to slip into the blackness until I heard the crunch of gravel in the driveway a few hours later.

When the new week rolled around, I went back to school. In the back of my mind I held worry that people would be staring at me, or want to ask me how I was feeling, but when I climbed out of my truck, it was as if I was surrounded by a thick fog. I was aware that people were there, but I didn't stop to talk to them.

Jessica followed me like a puppy for the first few hours of the day, but by the end of Calculus she seemed to have realized that I had no intention of talking to anyone. Then I could finally sit in silence without interruption. Lunch was the next big challenge.

I walked into the cafeteria, and was acutely aware of my lack of hungry. I would have opted not to eat, but I knew it would eventually get back to Charlie and he would worry. I decided to grab and apple and a bottle of water, and call that good enough. I took my poor excuse for a lunch, and wandered out into the lunchroom. To my horror and sick pleasure my zombie feet slowly shuffled me over to the old Cullen table. Even though the scary older siblings had graduated last year, the table had remained empty. It seemed the perfect place to be left to my own devices, even if it did mean that I would have to try harder to stay within the fog that kept the memories at bay.

I dug into my backpack and pulled out The Scarlet Letter, the novel we were currently reading in my literature class. I tortured myself with the love story of Hester, trying not to think about the love that was forever lost to me. I delved into the symbolism and imagery so the ghosts of my emotions could not float to the surface. I had never felt so relieved to hear the bell beckoning me to gym directly after lunch, as I was that day.

"Bella?" Jessica said quietly as I shuffled into the locker room to change for class. "Are you okay?"

I gave her a curt nod, so she would not think that I suddenly hated her, but then I shuffled to my locker and began to change. I had always been freezing cold in the shorts and t-shirt we were expected to wear as our gym uniform, but now my body didn't even register a difference in temperature. If I could feel a real emotion, that might have made me happy.

November

December

January

I stumbled through most of my days like that. I spoke to Charlie when he asked me questions. I was home from work at the Newton's sporting store every night in time to make dinner before Charlie finished watching whatever game was on that night. I spent copious hours on my homework, slowly climbing to the number one rank in my senior class. I wouldn't have noticed if Charlie did try to praise me at dinner every time he ran into the secretary who told him about it.

It had little importance to me, as I wasn't intending to use it on any college application. I no longer had any desire to go to college. Going to college meant leaving this town, and leaving this town meant forgetting. That was the rock and hard place I found myself sandwiched in between. I was petrified by the very idea of delving into my memories of Edward, but I refused to forget him. I would not let my mind become the sieve that he claimed it was. I would not think of him, but I would not forget him. Thus I could not leave this town.

I was sitting at the breakfast table with Charlie. I was swirling my cereal around the bowl, mostly just pretending to eat it. He was frowning over his eggs and toast, and suddenly his fists were slamming into the table, shocking me into looking up.

"That's it!" Charlie growled, as if we had been carrying on a conversation and I had said something to upset him. "You're going home."

"I am home," I responded, registering that my voice was too dull to please Charlie.

"To Florida," Charlie explained.

"Did I do something wrong?" I asked, not sure why he was suddenly trying to make me leave again.

"That's just it," Charlie huffed. "You never do anything."

"Do you want me to get into trouble?" I asked, feeling a vague sense of confusion, which was foreign.

"Anything would be better than this." Charlie said in defeat. "All you do is mope around the house."

"I do not mope!" I said, at a volume that was a sad mockery of yelling, in the past color would have been rising into my cheeks at this point.

"You're right, but moping would be better." Charlie yelled. "Moping would be something better than this half life."

"I'll go out alright?" I bartered. "Tonight, I will go see a movie with Jessica in Port Angeles."

"Do you even talking to Jessica anymore? Or any of your friends?" Charlie said incredulously.

"Sure, we talk at school." I lied, glad that I no longer blushed, and thus couldn't give myself away.

The conversation ended there, both because Charlie wasn't sure to say, and because I left the table and began washing the dishes we had used for breakfast. I quickly cleaned the dished, and put them in the strainer to dry while I was gone. I grabbed my backpack and through a stilted goodbye over my shoulder to Charlie before snapping the front door shut behind me. I slid into my truck and fired the engine up. Once I was on the road I had the chance to realized what a predicament I had just gotten myself into. How was I going to convince Jessica to even talk to me, let alone go to a movie with me?

I considered just hiding out at the library for the evening, but if anyone gossiped more than Jessica it was her mother, and Charlie was sure to run into her somewhere in town. He would probably bring up the movie outing, and she would sell me out without even thinking about it. I decided that I would try to approach her about it after Calculus. Of course the moment I made that decision, time seemed to fly forward at an alarming rate. It seemed before I could turn around twice the end of Calculus was approaching, and I still wasn't sure how to broach the topic with Jessica, who was sure to bite my head off.

"Hey Jess," I started, noticing how odd my voice sounded in these surroundings now.

"Are you talking to me?" Jessica asked incredulously.

"Yeah," I said trying to sound cheery. "I was wondering if you wanted to go to a movie or something…"

"With you?" She asked, her voice still sounding a bit scathing though it was softening somewhat.

"Yeah," I coughed out. "I could really use a girls night out."

"Okay," Jessica said her voice gaining energy and excitement. "What do you want to see?"

She had caught me there; I had no idea what was in theatres, for months now.

"I'm not really sure about that.." I hedged. "What would you like to see?"

"Well there's that romantic comedy Romance in Paris, or there is Dead End." Jessica chirped.

"Dead End?" I lunged at the title hopefully. "What's that about?"

"It's a zombie movie," Jessica started. "My dad saw it last weekend. He said it's the scariest movie he's ever seen!"

"That one sounds great!" I cheered, unfortunately my voice sounded pretty dead still.

"Okay, so do you want me to pick you up at your place after school?" Jessica bubbled.

"That sounds great," I agreed as we headed to the lunchroom.

I grabbed my usual apple and water, and registered for the first time that Angela, who was standing next to me in line, gave me a concerned look. I would have liked to please her, but I just wasn't hungry enough to eat more. I followed Jessica quietly to her table, and I looked down and thought maybe I did look a little sickly.

I sat with the group, and garnered a few stares from Mike and Tyler, but I gave them a small smile and they didn't say anything. I set to work on my strange lunchtime habit. First I twisted the stem of my apple off. Then I sat my apple on the napkin in front of me and began careful pealing the red skin off of my apple with the plastic butter knife supplied by the cafeteria. When I had finished with that I sliced the apple into 6 even slices, which I then sliced in half so I had 12 perfectly sliced pieces of apples.

I took a moment to enjoy the perfection before I slowly began eating. I listened to the conversation going on around me. It sounded like the flu was going around amongst the students of our class. I chuckled slightly internally when I thought about the fact that I couldn't possibly catch this flu since I had no social life anymore.


	3. Chapter 3

** Authors note- there may seem like there were some strange jumps in the previous chapters. I had put lines in to denote that I was making a significant subject change, but that I didn't want to make that change be a new chapter. Unfortunately those lines somehow disappeared when I uploaded the chapters. My apologies for any confusion that may have caused.

Also this one is a little long, I got carried away with where I am taking the story **

The rest of the afternoon passed quickly, and before I knew it Jessica and I were on the road headed towards Port Angeles. She had the radio on, playing cheesy pop music. I could remember when I liked this music, but now it was just a painful reminder of the love I couldn't have. Each song was like a stab at my heart. After three songs that all spoke about different aspects of being in love, I asked Jessica if I could change the station. I searched through the channels. I almost stopped on a classical music station, until the song flowing through the speakers reminded me of Edward humming in my ear. I quickly continued on. I finally settle on a station playing rap music. This could not have been further from Edward's preferences. Jessica gave me a strange look, but I just smiled and attempted to bop my head to the beat. After awhile I decided it was time to get Jessica talking, so I could settle in to pretending to carry on a conversation.

"So, how's Mike?" I prodded.

"You see him more than I do," Jessica said with a hint of bitterness in her voice.

She did not continue speaking, and in the silence I realized I must have missed the break up during my zombie state. Way to go Bella, I thought as I cringed internally.

"I guess he and I don't really talk much at work," I said quietly, hoping she would forgive my ignorance. "So any new guys in your life?"

"Well I went out with Eric a few weeks ago," Jessica provided quickly.

"Who asked who?" I questioned, actually feeling the slightest bit of curiosity.

"He did of course." Jessica laughed. "The whole date was a disaster from the moment it started."

I settled in then. Jessica gave me a detailed recounting of the date, and then jumped right into a comparison of a recent date an older date with Tyler without my prodding. She even continued into the drama the Tyler date had created between her and Lauren for a couple weeks without my asking. I simply had to nod my head every once in awhile and gasp as if I were shocked when she would turn towards me and say, can you believe it, every once in awhile.

Jessica's stories carried us all the way to the theatre, through the ticket line and half way through the previews. When she finally stopped talking I was forced to put my attention on the screen. Of course they would be playing a trailer for a romantic vampire movie. I squirmed through the two minutes of torture, thinking I would be home free when the first scenes of the actual movie came on.

To my dismay the camera panned over to a very much in love couple sharing a romantic moment on the beach. I kept hoping the horror would start so the couple wouldn't have a reason to kiss each other, but the loving moment continued to stretch on. After a minute that felt like a century I could feel the gaping, burning hole in my chest protesting, so I whispered to Jessica that I was going to get some popcorn and high tailed it towards the lobby.

Once there I quickly paid for a soda and a bag of popcorn, but then found a bench near the entrance to my theatre to sit on. I waited, listening intently to the tone of the muffled soundtrack I was hearing from inside the theatre. When I started to hear screams coming through, I decided it was safe to return to me seat. I shuffled passed the annoyed patrons to rejoin Jessica.

"What took so long? You've missed half the movie, basically everyone is a zombie by now." Jessica chastised me.

"Long line," was my only explanation as I turned back towards the screen.

I settled in and watched as the zombies picked off the last humans. I felt a little tense before the male hero was finally turned, as he clung to his wife in fear. I wasn't sure if I was going to have to leave again, but then they bit him and things got a little easier.

As the ending drew near there was just one human left amongst the zombies. She was running as fast as she could, but it was easy to see that she would eventually be caught. The camera began to cut between the face of the heroine and the zombie, and I became startlingly aware of my resemblance to one of the characters, and it wasn't the female. That had me jumping up from my seat yet again.

Jessica was saying something to me as I bolted, probably trying to figure out what I was doing, but I said nothing. I needed to get away from what I was seeing. As soon as I was out the door, I slumped onto the bench I had previously occupied. I held my sides tightly trying to keep the hole from splitting any further as the realization that I was no longer the heroine settled upon me. I had already lived my love story, and now that it had ended the story wasn't really about me. Perhaps one day I could be grateful for the amazing journey he had given me, but right now all I could feel was pain.

Within a few minutes the movie let out, and people began to pour out of the theatre. Eventually Jessica came through, her head tilted up, obviously looking for me. I waved from the bench to get her attention, and stood as she approached me.

"What happened?" Jessica asked incredulously.

"I got scared." I offered up, hoping she would accept it.

"I didn't think you were scared at all," Jessica giggled. "You weren't screaming like me anyway. That was really scary though wasn't it? We're going to have nightmares."

"Definitely," I said in a sure voice. She quirked a brow at me, but I let it pass, there was no question about my having nightmares tonight, they just wouldn't be about the movie.

We decided to grab something to eat, and began heading towards the McDonald's up the street. I was walking along beside Jessica just watching my feet, but after awhile I started to notice how quiet it was. Jessica wasn't talking; I looked up with a guilty look on my face, ready to apologize for my inattention. Jessica however was looking straight ahead, her eyes focused ahead of us, walking at a brisk pace. I looked around us to see what had Jessica so on edge, and I saw four guys leaning against the wall by the door to a bar. The door was propped slightly open and I could hear some country song leaking out into the night, and I found myself wondering if everyone inside was wearing cowboy boots and wrangler jeans.

The group of men reminded me of something, and before I had even made a decision to do so I was stepping into the street to move closer to them. With the first step off the curb I realized they reminded of the men from my last trip to Port Angeles. And with the second step I realized I wanted to see if it was really them. I should have been running, considering what those men had wanted to do, but my feet kept carrying me forward.

_Turn around._ His velvet voice growled in my head, and I stopped out of pure shock.

"Bella!" Jessica whisper yelled at me. "What are you doing?"

"I think I know them," I said nonchalantly as I turned to continue forward, hoping to coax the voice out again.

_Go back to Jessica._ His voice growled again.

"Are you crazy?" She whisper shrieked at me. "Are you suicidal or something?"

"No, " I growled at her, her rapid change in facial expression alerting me to late that she was asking a rhetorical question. "Just head on to dinner, I will catch up in a minute."

She gave me an incredulous look but threw her hands up in defeat and returned to the sidewalk. I was going to have to do some serious apologizing to her when I was done because she looked seriously upset with me. I continued walking forward trying to hear the voice again, but all it did was growl quietly in the back of my mind.

When I was all the way across the street it was easy to see that these were not the men from my last time in Port Angeles. I should have felt relieved, but all I felt was disappointment that the voice had once again disappeared from my mind. I stopped in front of them, but all I was thinking about was what had prompted me to hear his voice tonight. Barring of course that I was having some sort of mental break down. Perhaps my mind was giving me what I wanted, letting me pretend that he cared about my well-being. Either way I seemed to have finally lost it, and my delusions had brought me to a small piece of sidewalk three feet in front of four men that I did not know.

"You looking for someone?" One of the guys asked me.

"No," I said, with a slight waver in my voice. "I thought I saw someone I knew."

"You want to grab a drink," the guy said in a smooth voice that I was sure he had used on many girls before.

"I'm not old enough," I stuttered as I started backing away.

I could hear him say something else, but I was already scurrying off towards McDonald's to join Jessica. That had been a very stupid idea, yet I couldn't regret it because it had granted me the magic of his voice if only for a few moments. As I thought about the beauty of his voice I noted that I no longer felt the numbness of the haze I had hidden myself in for months now.

With that realization I finally caught Jessica as she began crossing the last street between McDonald's and us. She didn't look at me as I came up beside her, so I just kept my mouth shut and tried to keep up with her quick pace. Jessica obviously wanted nothing to do with me for the rest of the evening and ordered her food to go. I followed suit, and trailed behind her as she headed quickly back towards her car by the theatre.

We rode in relative silence on the way home. Jessica turned the radio back to the cheesy pop station, and cranked it up to insure that we would not be talking. I sipped on the bottle of water I had purchased, and tried to ride out the waves of uncomfortable emotions rolling off of Jessica, now that I couldn't hide behind the numbness.

We arrived in Forks alarmingly fast for Jessica's driving. I climbed quickly out of the car, and turned back to Jessica before closing the door.

"I'm sorry about earlier tonight Jess," I said trying not to squirm. "I don't know what came over me."

"Whatever Bella," Jessica rolled her eyes at me before turning back to face the road.

I closed the door and watched as she drove away before turning to walk into the house. To my surprise Charlie was waiting in the front hallway just a few feet from the door when I came in. He was glaring at me as I pulled off my coat.

"Where do you think you have been?" he hollered.

"I went to a movie with Jessica," I scoffed. "Just like we talked about this morning."

"Oh… well…" Charlie stuttered out loosing his head of steam quickly. "How was it?"

"It was scary, I'm probably going to have bad dreams." We both cringed as I said that, easily remember how I came screaming into consciousness every morning. "I should go get some of my homework done before bed though."

I ducked around Charlie and hurried up the stairs. I tossed my purse onto my desk and sat down on my bed and let my head rest in my hands. I wasn't sure what I was going to do now. The world was a little to loud now that the fog was gone. Perhaps this new way to exist wouldn't be so bad though, if I could continue to hear his voice. It was odd that I could be looking forward to the idea of hearing his voice, but I could not allow myself to utter his name, even within my mind. I decided that my English essay was going to be a no go for the night, and grabbed my pajamas and bag of toiletries and headed towards the shower.

After a quick shower I climbed into bed. Even after all these months of the same thing I took a moment to mentally pray that tonight I wouldn't have any nightmares, but I had little hope. I bundled up in my blankets and before long I slipped into dreamland.

Almost immediately my eyes opened to see the green forest around me. I began walking forward, and even my sleeping mind was aware of how familiar this dream was. I began to pick up my pace, searching through the trees for a man I knew I would never find. No matter which was I turned all I could see was the leafy and mossy green forest of the Olympic Peninsula. I began tripping over the tree roots, but I pushed on, hoping that if I just picked up the pace a little bit more I would find him.

When I fell over a particularly tall root and fell onto my hands and knees in the mud I stayed down. That's when the fact that there was nothing for me to find in this forest set in. I tried to calm my racing heart and my panicked breaths, but it was of no use. I quickly began to hyperventilate, and before I knew it I was screaming and my eyes were flying open to reveal my bedroom. I quickly rolled to the side and buried my face in my pillow to muffle my screams.

Charlie didn't come to check on me anymore, he knew there wasn't an intruder in the house. He had frequently ascertained for himself that no one was trying to kill me. I couldn't blame him for staying in bed. The least I could do was try to keep quiet, and hope that he slept through the few screams that got out un-stifled. I looked at my alarm clock to see that my alarm would be going off in three minutes anyway. I quickly switched it off and climbed out of bed.

I dressed quickly in jeans and a thermal shirt, and pulled my hair into a ponytail before heading down to the kitchen. I had made a habit of getting up early on Saturday's, since I couldn't sleep very long anyway, and cooking a nice breakfast for Charlie before he left to go fish and I left for a shift at Newton's. I set to work, pulling eggs and bacon from the refrigerator and the pancake batter mix from the cabinet near the window.

I mixed the batter up while the first pair of eggs cooked in the skillet. When they were done I quickly put them on a plate for Charlie and poured some batter into the pan. I made him two pancakes, and then through several slices of bacon into the pan. While it was sizzling I started brewing a pot of coffee. When the bacon had finished I added it to the plate, that was now ready and set it all on the table. I grabbed a coffee cup from the cabinet and set to work making Charlie a mug, with cream and two sugars, just the way he likes it. I set that on the table just as he was walking into the room.

"I thought I smelled bacon," Charlie joked as he sat down at the table. "You going to join me this time?"

"You know I'm not a breakfast person dad," I chided, noting his eyes perking up at the life that was now present in my voice. "I'll sot with you and have juice though."

I poured myself a glass of orange juice and sat with Charlie. He was reading the morning paper, but he pulled out the international news section and handed it to me. I had taken to reading that during our little Saturday morning breakfasts. It was the least likely to have a story that reminded me of him, so it was the safest.

When I had finished my juice and the first couple articles from the paper I checked my watch, I had about fifteen minutes to get to work. I washed my glass and the dishes I had used to make Charlie's food quickly and put them in the strainer to dry. I called a goodbye to Charlie, and hurried out to my truck.

Work was mundane as usual. Only now I noticed that Mike was basically ignoring me. I could only blame myself since I had been a zombie for months now. The store was pretty empty today, and after I had been there for about 45 minutes Mrs. Newton came in.

"Oh Bella, I completely forgot to call you this morning," the overly Hollywood looking woman told me. "We're closing the store early today. I was going to tell you that you didn't need to come in after all."

"Oh," I stuttered as I started pulling off my apron. "Alright, I'll just head out then."

"Sorry about that hun," she said kindly as I was heading towards the door. "See you Monday after school."

"See you," I said as I pushed open the front door and headed out towards my truck.

I wasn't sure what to do with myself now that my entire Saturday was chalk full of free time. I didn't have enough homework to fill up my entire day, and I was worried about sitting around the house all day when I couldn't hide my mind in the friendly fog it had created for itself. There were too many things that could remind me of him. I decided it might not be a half bad idea to go for a drive.

I started driving down a Russell Avenue that lead out of town onto one of our scenic highways when my mind started to wander. Thoughts of him started trying to push themselves to the forefront of my mind. Before I knew it I was crying. The hole in my chest felt like it might rip me in two, and the tears were starting to blur my vision. I decided I shouldn't be driving like this and pulled off the side of the road, turning my truck off, and slumping across the bench seat to let the tears take me.


	4. Chapter 4

** Author's note- from here the story is going to make quite a jump, and some of the content in this chapter, and probably the following one will be pretty dark. Be warned. **

When the tears finally slowed and I was able to gain control of myself I sat up and looked around myself. It looked like I was parked across the street from the Mark's family driveway. I looked in the rearview mirror and tried to clean up my face. My eyes were still a bit puffy and there wasn't much I could do to fix that for now, but other than that I seemed to look all right.

As I was looking at my surroundings I noticed two motorcycles with a sign that said for sale sitting next to the driveway that lead up to the Mark's house. Just then I was struck with an idea. I was feeling so miserably because of Edward's promise to never come back, but he wasn't actually keeping his promise that it would be as if he had never existed. So why should I keep my promise to not be reckless? Reckless and stupid, that was exactly how Edward and Charlie would describe a motorcycle. I was quickly climbing out of the cab of my truck and hustled across the road to get a closer look at the bikes.

_Bella get back in the truck._ His voice startled me, just looking at the bikes wasn't dangerous at all. I looked around to see if there was some wild animal I hadn't noticed, but all I saw was a white car driving down the road. I thought maybe the voice thought I was going be hit by the car or something so I stepped further from the road, but other than that I opted to ignore it. _Bella, please, get back in your truck and drive home._

I shook my head and finished my approach to the bikes. I was just crouching down to get a closer look at the cracked headlight on one of them when I heard the car that had been driving pull to a stop near by. I decided to ignore it and started tapping on the headlight to see if it was as fragile as it looked.

"Excuse me miss," a calm quiet voice said from behind me. "Could you help me? I seem to be lost."

I turned, and saw that the man was sitting in his car. He had the driver's side door open to make more room for the map he was trying to find something on. He looked a little pitiful struggling with the giant map. _Stay by the bikes_, his voice growled at me. That seemed odd.

"Sure," I said kindly as I started walking around to the driver's side to look at the map, noting that he had Washington plates but assuming he must be from the other side of the state. "Where are you headed?"

_Stop._ The voice nearly yelled at me, as if it could scare me into listening to it. I was trying not to look a gift horse in the mouth with the whole hearing his voice thing, but I was becoming annoyed with my own hallucinations.

"I was trying to go to First Beach over in La Push, but I seemed to have gotten all sorts of turned around." The man said sheepishly peering up at me, still crouched over the map. He wasn't a bad looking guy, probably in his late thirties.

"Oh I know just how to get there," I rushed, feeling relived that I would be able to help him.

_Run._ His voice cried in fear as I reached out towards the map. I saw then why his voice had been warning me, but it was far to late. The man's face shifted instantly to one that looked angry and evil, and at the same time he grabbed my outstretched arm and pulled me forward. It was enough to throw me off balance, and cause me to bash my forehead into the metal frame above his door. I screamed both in pain and in fear, but he was already using his other arm to grab me around the waist and pull me into the car and across his body. Everything started to fade to black, and with a sense of fear and dread I realized I was loosing consciousness, and he was shoving my legs further in so he could close his door. I felt the pull of the car starting to drive away.

--

Sometime later I woke up, but even after I opened my eyes I was surrounded by darkness. My breathing became panicked when I realized that I couldn't see anything. I felt my face to see if there was some sort of blindfold that I wasn't feeling, but there was nothing there. I was afraid that I had gone blind, but it seemed odd. I hadn't hit my head that hard had I?

That question was soon answered for me. I heard a heavy scrapping noise, and then the quiet sound of a doorknob being turned. Then suddenly there was light shining in at me, and I had to close my eyes because it was two bright. My eyelashes flutter a bit before adjusting. When I could see again, I realized that the man from the car was holding a flashlight and looking in at me. I quickly looked around me and saw that the room I was in was about 6 feet wide and three feet deep. The ceiling seemed sloped, and I realized that I was in some sort of closet under the stairs.

I was pulled roughly from my musings about my location, when I felt his rough hands closing around my upper arms and pulling me towards him. He pulled me right up against his body, and when my face was within inches of his I realized that I knew who he was. I hadn't ever had a real conversation or something like that, but I had seen him in at Newton's a couple times, and once at a football game that had dragged me to this fall. It was Joe Mason. Charlie had told me he was a recluse but a nice man, and that it was a shame that everyone thought he was so odd. I guess Charlie didn't really know Joe Mason after all.

"Its time for your inspection," he growled at me, all the friendliness he had used to lure me in, gone from his voice.

"What?" I very nearly whispered confused as to what he meant.

I quickly understood what he meant when he began pulling my clothes off. I tried to push his hands away, but he was much stronger than me, and after he smacked me across the face my already throbbing head told me it wasn't such a great idea to try and fight him. In the dark recesses of my mind, I felt certain I could hear his voice growling.

"Please don't hurt me," I whispered as I felt the tears begin to fall.

"Just be quiet." Joe growled, but he didn't move to hit me again either.

I had hoped when my jeans and shirt were piled on the ground that he would have been please but he quickly pulled of the rest of my clothing, and I stood there shaking bother from the cold and from fear. I didn't know what he meant by inspection, but nothing that started with the removal of all my clothing could end well.

"Put your arms out, and stay still," He instructed. "I have to make sure everything on you is normal."

"I'm normal, " I offered up feebly, not wanting to move my arms away from my chest.

_Try not to make him angry._ The voice whispered in the back of my mind. It disturbed me how sad and defeated the voice sounded. As if he knew that hoping for my safety was a lost cause, and now he was just trying to lower the level of the destruction that would come.

I obliged both of them, and opened my arms. I tried to be still as he leaned in close with the flashlight, but I couldn't stop myself from shaking. He examined every part of my body, and I stayed as still as I could. When he knelt to examine my private parts I could stop the sobs that escaped me.

"Be quiet you slut," He growled up and me when I shuddered when his cold fingers brushed my legs. The voice in my head let out a fierce snarl.

I silenced myself as best I could. Joe reached into a bag on the floor that I hadn't noticed, and my muscles tensed not knowing what he would pull out. I relaxed a bit when it was a towel and what appeared to be a bottle of rubbing alcohol. He doused the towel in rubbing alcohol and began rubbing it all over my skin. Mumbling things about cleaning me up. I couldn't understand what he meant, I wasn't dirty.

When he had finished, he stood and pulled off his grey flannel over shirt. I began to tense again, fearing what his next plan would be. He then pulled off the white t-shirt he was wearing, and I began to loose control of my shakes out of fear. I breathed a small sigh of relief when he pulled his t-shirt over me. He threw the clothes I had been wearing into his bag, and then put his over shirt back on and buttoned it up.

"What time is it?" I asked quietly hoping that I wouldn't upset him, but wanting to get some sort of bearing of my situation.

"It's night time," he chuckled. "First night with the little slut awake."

"First night…" I trailed off in confusion. "Was I asleep for a different night?"

"Knocked you pretty hard putting you in the car," he grumbled. "You've out for nearly 24 hours."

"Oh…" I breathed, and for some reason that I didn't understand I continued. "I'm sorry."

"Just get back in your room girl." He said, but some of the anger had left his voice.

I did as he said so he wouldn't hit me again, and he quickly snapped the door shut behind me. _Listen._ His voice growled, and I did so even though I was confused as to why. I could hear Joe sliding something heavy up against the door he had just closed. I made a mental note to pay attention to what was nearby if he let me out again. I continued listening, and I heard him climb up the stairs, I had been right about being under the stairs, and he was a heavy walker.

And then everything was quiet and I was left with just my thoughts. And since I was relatively safe his voice wasn't there to keep me company. I knew I had been here for two days now, but I had no idea about when I could be getting out. I knew very little about this man, he could plan to kill me for all I knew. With a sinking feeling I realized that was probably his intention, since he had no qualms about letting me see his face. That's when I started crying again. I cried for the time I wouldn't get to spend with Charlie, and the life, even zombie like that I wouldn't get to experience. After I had cried for the loss of my friends and future, I allowed my mind to wander to the one place it had been so adamantly avoiding. I cried because as impossible the chance was, I now knew I would never get the chance to see E-Edward, or Alice, or any of the other Cullen's. They would probably come pack to Forks one day many many years from now, and they would never know what had happened to me. Charlie would try to find me, but he wouldn't find more than my body. Of course he wouldn't have my headstone say anything about the kidnapping, so they would just think I had died in some accident because I was always having accidents.


	5. Chapter 5

The days were impossible to denote, as I spent nearly all of them in complete blackness. Sometimes my only interaction with Joe was him sliding a piece of break through what must be a mail slot on the door into this little room. There was no light involved in that process, but I would always hear the telltale sliding of what I had eventually learned was a book case before the metal clang and then the strange muffle crunchy sound of stale bread landing on the floor.

He would come back for his inspections, but I tried as hard as I could to force my mind into the fog that it had been in for months when that would happen. As far as I could tell he didn't do that everyday, but I no longer knew how long I had been in this little room. It felt like a lifetime.

Edward's voice was still with me occasionally, but there wasn't a lot he could say to me. Once he begged that I be silent while I was crying, I failed to listen to him, and Joe came into the little room, which I was now referring to as the hidden room in my mind, and laid into me something fierce. He kept calling me stupid dog, and it took me a little while to understand that he had company upstairs that he had convinced there was a whining dog in the basement, not and 18 year old girl who he had kidnapped off the road.

After he left me there to lie in my own blood, though I new he would be back later for an inspection since I was dirty, I was left to my own thoughts. I wondered if Charlie was still looking for me, or if he had given up. It didn't look as if anyone suspected Joe of anything. At least I hadn't heard the heavy thump of the boots the police in Forks wear moving across the floor of this house. I did once hear a woman in the house, and she did come down into the basement, but she walked past the bookshelf outside my door without stopping. I didn't dare call out to her both because the voice warned me not to, and because I couldn't be sure that Joe wasn't with her. It was her quiet singing that let me know it was a woman, but I couldn't actually hear her light footsteps. I understood her purpose when I heard the clink of glass, and realized she was grabbing some of the preserves off of the shelf I had once noticed against the wall just a bit past my little prison.

One night, at least I thought it was probably night; Joe came to pull me out of the closet again. I thought he was going to do another inspection, so I hardly flinched at the removal of the stained white shirt. I saw that he had his bag again, so I assumed I would get the alcohol bath and a new shirt this time. I began to hear Edward's growl within my mind, and I became confused. He had stopped doing that during the inspections, seeming to know that I was not truly affected by them anymore. The growling increased when Joe grabbed me around the throat to force me to the ground.

I quickly lost all of my numbness to this foreign position. He released my throat, and started to trail his hands downward. With a sinking feeling in my heart I realized that what I had originally feared seemed to be happening now. Hr touched places that had originally only been prodded or moved during his inspections. I tried to slip back into the numbness but I was unsuccessful, and instead began to cry. He kept growling at me to shut up as he pushed his fingers into areas that had always been untainted to for. I tried to stop the shaking and tears as he did this to me, hoping that he wouldn't go any further, but I was not entirely successful.

At one point I lost my control of my vocal chords and began begging him to stop. _Please try to be quiet._ Edward's voice cried in my head. He sounded more broken than I felt, but he seemed to know that my begging would upset Joe. He hadn't been wrong. Joe had quickly begun shouting vulgarities about how whores like things like this before his hands closed around my throat. On instinct alone I tried to fight him off, pulling at his hands. I was fighting a loosing battle though, he had made certain that I would grow incredibly weak by only giving me bread once a day, and the water wasn't even daily. Black spots began to appear on his face as I tried to pry his hands away, and I knew I was going to loose this fight. I was sure that I was going to die, so I let my mind wander to Edward. I let the image of his perfect face that I had saved in my memory somewhere safe. Everything faded to black around his face, and eventually the black bled in and took his face from me. I did not feel fear then, because I was certain that I was dying and that this would be over now.

At some point I knew my eyes had opened even though I couldn't see anything, but I felt the slight burn of my dry eyes being exposed to the air. Then I felt the terrible pain in my throat and I began to cough. I wished desperately that I had water to soothe it. I was not desperate enough for that water to try and make some sort of sound to lure Joe to me though. He hadn't killed me this time, but he might the next time. I didn't want to do anything to make him angry with me.

I fell back into the recesses of my mind for a while after that. Joe continued with the inspections, but for a while did not touch me in such an inappropriate way again for a while. I tried to keep my mind on thoughts of what I had been learning in school, because it was clinical, and detached entirely from my surroundings. I felt certain that I was getting better at doing logarithms since I could now do them easily in my head.

After some span of time, he came back for one of his inspections, I couldn't be sure if it would be an inspection of something worse so I couldn't stop the shaking. He pulled the shirt off of my like he usually did, but then he made the now well-memorized movement for me, grabbing my throat to pull me down to the ground. I started crying almost instantly.

"Please don't rape me," I cried out, unable to stop myself.

"I don't have sex with dirty whores," He laughed at me evilly. "While they are alive anyway."

"What do you mean?" I choked out as his hands wandered down, I would rather hear his disturbing thoughts than be completely mentally present for what was happening to my body yet again

"I've had sex with 12 little whores like you," He barked. "I killed them all because they were so dirty, but once they were dead they were clean enough. Whores make a good lay, it's the only thing they're good for."

I didn't want to know anymore after that. I had journeyed far enough into his twisted mind to know where this was all going. I could vaguely remember some articles that would pop up in the paper occasionally about missing girls. They were always around my age, and within about 100 miles of this area. I guess, I had inadvertently discovered who their killer had been, as well as the fact that they had died. The most recent three were still listed as missing anyway.

I lost hope for survival in that moment. Both because I knew I could not fight off any of these attacks Joe would make and because he obviously intended to kill me in the end. It was horribly depressing to learn that I wouldn't live to see my 19th birthday. It was almost funny that I had fought with Edward so much to try to prevent reaching even my 18th birthday, and now I would give anything to have one last slice of birthday cake, or even to just sit and watch one last baseball game with Charlie.

I was pulled back to reality, to know that Joe had finished with his fun when his hand started closing around my throat again. I couldn't be sure if he planned to just steal my consciousness again this time, or if he planned to steal my life like he had done to 12 other girls. I was afraid to join the graveyard of teenage girls that this evil man took as his own.

I woke up sometime later back in my hidden room, and breathed a sigh of relief that he had let me live this time. Then I started crying, muffling the sound with the white t-shirt, when I realized this was not really living. This was less than the half-life Charlie had rightly accused me of living before this had happened. I regretted that time now; Edward's leaving had been devastating but was it worth giving up the last months of my life? It had seemed like the end of my life, but now that I was facing the true end of my life it seemed like a waste.

What I assumed were days passed, marked by the piece of bread sliding through the little flap in my door. It seemed he had grown a bit tired of me, because he wasn't staying for any of his usual activities. He did speak to me through the flap after sliding a piece of bread and a bottle of water through to me once. He told me he was going into Forks to watch one of the big homecoming basketball games because he had to keep up appearances with the locals. With a shudder I realized that meant I had been hear for at least two weeks already, and that we were pushing towards the end of February already. I barely registered his instructions to be good to avoid punishment because I was busy lamenting my current situation.

The examinations started again after that, and I thought maybe he had needed time away from me before so he could more easily pretend he knew nothing about me should he some how run into Charlie. We settled into a twisted routine of just the examinations, and I felt okay with my lot since it did not continue beyond those physical boundaries for some time.

After an amount of time that I could not track due to my inability to focus or stay awake for large amounts of time due to malnutrition I started hearing Edward's voice more urgently in my head. He was whispering to be still, and to not make him angry, and this alerted me that Joe was approaching. Not a second after that realization I heard his feet hitting the stairs above me.

He moved the bookcase like he had before, and pulled me out into the open. I saw the look in his eye that I now recognized as the look of determination and hunger I would see when he had bigger plans for our interactions. I tried not to cry or to shake; I didn't want to do anything to make him angry. I had a better idea of why Edward's voice was so concerned, when I looked to the floor to see if he had the bag, in hopes that this would just be one of his cleaning bouts. To my horror the only thing on the floor was a knife. My heart took off at a sprint then. I had assumed that he killed his victims by strangulation, but perhaps that was just a game for him while he played his game of cat and mouse. Perhaps he stabbed his victims to kill them.

He went through his usual routine of the inappropriate touching, and I kept my mind as detached as I could so I wouldn't really feel it. My mind wandered to a strange place, and I found myself trying to decide if he was Obsessive Compulsive, as he always did everything exactly the same way. When he had finished with his ministrations I felt my muscles lock down, I was waiting to feel his fingers latch around my throat but it never came. Instead her grabbed my shoulders firmly and turned my body over so my face was pressed into the floor.

I didn't have time to ponder what he might be doing differently before I felt the searing pain in my back. I screamed out in pain and I felt the pain get strong. _Try not to move or make to loud a noise._ Edward's defeated voice instructed me. The only way I could manage not to scream as the fiery pain ripped across my back was to try to focus only on the voice. I asked him why I should stay still, and what was happening. I knew I was officially insane when he answered my questions. _The knife Bella, he's using the knife. Please don't make him angry while he's using the knife._ It was then that I understood the danger of the situation.

I stayed as still and as quiet as I could manage, but my body was shaking with the pain of what I realized was carving. I had feared that he was stabbing me, but as I paid more attention to how the knife was moving I realized I could feel him pulling it through familiar paths. He seemed to be carving a word. After that I forced my mind into the fog, I didn't want to be present for this anymore. I didn't want to know what he was writing or what he would do afterward. I stayed quiet because Edward had asked me to, but I let the silent tears take me as I slid under that familiar blanket of void.

"Mine," he growled into my ear, pulling me back to reality.

Then he was forcing my body back into the hidden room and throwing the shirt at me. I heard him push the shelf back in front of the door, and then I listened numbly as his feet climbed up the stairs. I lay still listening to his feet quickly cross what I assumed was the living room and then I heard a door opening. I ponder for just a second how much better my hearing was, before it registered in my mind that the more hollow and distant sound of his boots falls suggested that he was outside. I sat up quickly; winces as the skin of my back stretch and tore more. I quickly pulled the shirt over my body as I listened harder. I heard a car start up and drive off. I listened until I couldn't hear the car anymore. Then I was startled by how loud Edward's voice sounded in my mind, _Run._

I didn't take the time to analyze the impossibility of his suggestion. I just acted on it. I pulled myself up off the floor and stumbled blindly towards the door. When my hands made contact I searched wildly for the handle. I found it and turned it. It would turn but I couldn't easily push the door open. I leaned my entire body as hard as I could into the door and heard the bookcase shift a bit. This gave me hope. If I could just get the bookcase to move out a few inches I could slide out of the opening in the doorway. I suddenly found myself wondering why I hadn't tried this the last time he had left the house. I suppose I had been so focused on that piece of bread, that staving off my hunger felt much more important than anything else.

After a few more minutes of pushing and straining I could feel that there was a five-inch gap. I tried to fit my head through it, but it was a little too tight, so I went back to pushing on the door and the bookcase. _Almost there._ Edward's voice prodded gently just as I was thinking about giving up. I pushed one more time, and then tried to slide through again. My head fit, and then I could easily slide my body through. I found myself actually feeling a bit thankful that I was all skin and bones now.

Once out of the hidden room I was still in the dark. I kept close to the wall, dragging my hand along it while I shuffled forward. Soon I could feel the edges of the stairs and my hand was running along the banister. I quickened my pace and rounded the edge so I could climb the stairs knowing I was close the light. I crawled on my hands and knees up the stairs so my clumsiness could not ruin my escape. My hands brushed the door as I reached the top of the stairs. I stood and opened the door. I breathed a sigh of relief when it opened easily. I had been worried that he kept the basement door locked.

I had to close my eyes as it opened because the light was so bright. I had spent so much time in total darkness that my eyes were very sensitive. After a few seconds I was able to stop blinking and start moving forward again. I could see the front door just 20 feet from me and I wanted to cry it made me so happy. I ran to it and through it open. I was greeted by the lush green forest, and was a little saddened to think of how close to home I had been this entire time. I looked around from the porch and realized that while I recognized the familiar vegetation I wasn't sure where I was. There wasn't even a road that let to the house to give some clue as to where society would be found. My heart started to sink, until I realized it didn't matter. All that mattered was getting away from this house. That's when I started to run. I ran as fast as I could into the forest. I felt the rocks and twigs on the ground tearing at my feet but I didn't care. All that mattered was getting away. I was completely lost, but I just kept running.

I started to hear a river running somewhere ahead of me and I kept running towards it. I knew that there was a bridge in town that crossed a river, and I thought I might be able to follow the river in. I could feel my heart working over time, thumping against my ribs, trying to keep my tired body moving. I was just considering slowing to a walk when I had to skid to a stop because I was running our of ground. I suddenly knew that I was running towards the Quillayute River, because I had heard about these river cliffs. I managed to come to a complete stop just before I ran right off the edge.


	6. Chapter 6

As I stood on the edge of the cliff thoughts were swirling through my mind. The pain in my back was in the forefront of my mind, which leads to questions about what he had written. It wasn't like I had a mirror on me though, so I had no way of knowing. I thought about how all I had on was that mans white t-shirt, which made me think about how I didn't want anyone too see me like this. I thought about how everyone probably already thought I was dead since I had been gone for so long now. I remembered someone saying that if a person wasn't found in the first 48 hours they were almost always dead. My father would know that statistic.

I thought a lot about what Charlie might be thinking. He could be sticking stubbornly to his guns that I was out there somewhere, and still be searching for me. He could be crushed, mourning a daughter he was sure was dead. Or he could have thought that I simply ran away, as I hadn't been myself for months now. He could feel like he failed, or that I abandoned him like my mother had.

When I thought about that I wasn't sure I wanted to return to him. On the one hand he could be terribly angry at me. He would be upset if I acted like zombie Bella or something after returning from what he probably thought was some fun get away that I had irresponsibly taken. Or if he believed I had been kidnapped, he could be expecting his daughter back when I returned to town, and I wasn't sure I could be that girl anymore. I didn't feel like the Bella who had moved to Forks over a year ago. I wasn't sure who I was now.

As I thought more about whom I was now I realized I didn't like that person very much. That person was jumpy, and suspicious. She was sure that everyone was out to get her, and would find some way to punish her for whatever she did. That girl wanted to crawl right out of her skin and become a different person. I couldn't let myself be that girl. And I couldn't crawl out of my skin to become someone new. As I stared over the cliff looking down at the roaring river, it occurred to me that I didn't have to be that girl. A small smile crossed my face as I thought about simply washing that girl away.

Almost instantly I made a deal with myself. I would jump. Most likely I would die, and I could be okay with that. This girl that I hated would go away. There wouldn't be any pain anymore. If I somehow managed to survive I promised myself that I would leave that girl in the river. I would let the current wash her and all traces of the man who had created her from my body, and I would climb out as the old Bella. I thought more about that and realized that the probability of surviving this jump, when I was not likely to be strong enough to swim was slim to none. I was surprised when that didn't bother me. That's when I was sure that I didn't want to climb out of the river, I wanted to stay there forever.

_Don't do this_. His voice made its reappearance.

"Why shouldn't I?" I argued with out any fire in my voice.

_Please live. For me._ Was his answer.

"You aren't even here Edward," I sighed. "Why should I live for a voice in my head. It even more insane than the rest of it."

_For Charlie._ He prodded.

"Charlie got along just fine before me," I pointed out. "And he will be fine again, he has probably already moved on."

_You promised._ He cried.

"And you promised that when you left I would be safe." I said with an edge to my voice. "Do I look safe to you?"

_Please Bella._ He whispered.

"No," I said firmly. "Goodbye Edward. I love you. Alice if you somehow see this, please tell Charlie that I loved him, and I am sorry for how I acted before."

And then I jumped. I fell through the air quickly, I felt a rush of adrenaline, but mostly all I registered was how the wind made me feel even colder than before. The water nearly burned me when I hit it was that cold. It was like pins and needles all over me. I immediately felt the current grab me. I was close enough to the cliff that it was trying to push me into the rocks rather than drag me down stream. I didn't fight it; I just rolled so I was faced away from the surface just incase I floated to the top. I felt my head hit the rocks as I was thrown by one of the waves. The world started to fade to black, and I thought I heard Edward's voice beginning me to swim, but I was tired of trying. I let myself drift away.


	7. Chapter 7

**** Authors Note- not sure how many chapters I will do in different povs, but for now, here's the man of the hour :P ****

**EPOV**

The family had settled in Seattle about a month ago, or at least that's what Alice told me on the phone earlier when she begged me yet again to come home. I had been with them for a bit when we first left Forks and traveled to Denali. I only made it through a week before I was crawling out of my skin, and only three days after that before I made a run for it.

Everyone was a reminder of what I could never have with Bella. Alice and Jasper were the most conscious of trying not to show affection for each other in front of me, but even they could not stop themselves from thinking about one another. Jasper would catch it quickly and send rays of indifference to everyone around.

I might have lasted longer if it weren't for Tanya. I had always been clear with her that I wanted nothing more than friendship. To her credit she had tried to stifle her feelings, but something had changed. She wasn't openly making passes at me, but her thoughts were torturous. In the past I would have shaken off her wishes for more with a friendly gesture, but now her thoughts had turned bitter. She was thinking horrible things about Bella. She was mentally tearing down the very reason for my existence, and that I could not handle.

I had started by asking her to stop when she was having such thoughts. First it was polite. Then it was stilted as I tried to force down my anger. Then I was outright yelling at her. When I was about to resort to violence just to silence her thoughts I knew it was time to leave. My anger was second only to the despair I was torturing Jasper with on a physical level, and the rest of my loved ones because of their empathy.

I disappeared the night that I lunged for Tanya before Jasper could hit me with a wave of calm. I halted before I made contact but I knew it was over, I turned on my heel and ran out of the house. I didn't stop running until I had crossed the Canadian border back into Washington. I pulled up short then, because I realized my feet had been carrying directly back to the one town I had promised I would stay out of. I ran to Bellingham and hopped the first flight out of the country.

Most of my time up until now didn't really exist. I oscillated between a living coma in whatever rat-hole attic I could find that was unoccupied and tracking Victoria. I felt an obligation to track her, just incase she wanted vengeance for the death of James, but I didn't believe that she had such a reaction in her. I think I did it mostly to feel closer to Bella.

This morning Alice called me, begging me once again to come home. I had ignored or hung up on several of these calls over the last few months, but she rushed out the fact that they had left Denali before I could hang up on her. She told me how the family was living in the forest just outside of Seattle. It seemed that Emmet and Rosalie were away on a trip in Africa, but they would be coming home in a few days and Alice wanted me to be home when they got their, so the family would be together again. After nearly an hour of the little pixie prodding at me she finally convinced me to come back. I booked a flight out of South America within the hour.

I touched down in the Seattle airport early in the morning. Esme and Carlisle were there waiting for me. Carlisle opened his arms to welcome me into a hug, and it was just like when he welcomed me back from my rogue vigilante days, except that I was not full of the shame of what I had done while I was away. Now I only felt remorse for having been away long enough to cause the pain that I saw in Esme's eyes.

"Welcome home son," Carlisle said, clapping me on the shoulder as I moved to hug Esme.

"Its very good to see you both," I said before I buried my face in my mother's shoulder.

"I love you," was the only greeting Esme had for me, and it was all the greeting I needed.

We climbed into Carlisle's Mercedes and pulled out into the rainy highway. It was comforting to hear the tap of the rain on the windshield again; I had been without it for far to long. My mind tried to wander to memories of Bella, but I stifled them as quickly as I could, not wanting to ruin the reunion with the family. We turned down a tree lined driveway and I told myself that it wasn't similar to anything I had seen before just so I wouldn't force my way out of the car.

The family had settled in a pale yellow farmhouse, which looked nice amongst all the lush foliage. Carlisle pulled quietly into the garage beside the house and there was perfect moment of silence before a shriek and a blur flashing towards me and slamming into my side announced the arrival of Alice. I jumped out of the car and pulled her into a full embrace. When I let her go I pulled Jasper into a quick hug as well. I immediately read that there was something bothering him, and I assumed it had to do with me since he was trying not to think about anything other than the weather today. Jasper was usually pretty good about hiding his thoughts, unless he was under extreme duress.

"What is it Jasper," I asked, hoping either he would answer me, or he would slip up in hiding his thoughts.

"You should come inside," he said quietly, sending a wave of calm as he turned to lead me inside. "The paper just came."

I felt confusion under his blanket of calm. Why would something in the paper be so upsetting? I followed him into the house, and let him push me gently into a chair at the long wooden dinning table. Alice was standing to the side with a blank stare, probably searching for what my reaction would be. I was about to look into her mind to see what she would see, but that was when Jasper set the paper in front of me. I didn't even have to look below the fold on the front page, the bold headline and the accompanying picture was all it took to freeze the world around me. I was sure my dead heart had truly and completely frozen in that moment.

_**Search For Missing Teen Continues Despite the Skepticism of Experts**_

_ A month ago Forks, Washington teen Isabella Swan went missing sometime between leaving work and reaching her home. It isn't yet determined what she was doing out on Russell Avenue that Saturday, but eyewitness Jeff Marks saw her being pulled into a white Ford Elite. The boy told police that he recognized that it was a Washington plate, but he couldn't make out the digits from the porch of his house. Marks had run outside after hearing the girl's scream. He saw the man pull the teen into his car and drive away. Marks wasn't sure how the assailant had convinced Swan to approach the vehicle. Swan is the daughter of Forks Police Chief Charlie Swan, and has been described as an intelligent young woman. Chief Swan has been scouring the forests surrounding Forks. He will not give a statement to the paper, but friends say he is devastated. No vehicles fitting the description have been sighted in the area, and with no other leads the police have little to go on in their search for this missing girl._

_ This is a haunting reminder of the twelve cases you have read about over the past decade in this paper. This state has seen a pattern of teen girls going missing without a trace. Hopes and prayers go out to the Swan family. May their fate be different than the twelve other cold cases._

The article continued on a loop in my mind as I started at Bella's senior portrait in black and white before me. I ran my fingers over her lips holding in the cry that was threatening to break free at the thought that those lips might have lost their warmth. I had promised Bella he safety upon my departure not thinking about the very human predators there were out there.

I became aware that Jasper was yelling something at me, when his hands closed around my wrist forcing my left hand off the table. I was crushing the wood under my hand without meaning to. I noticed then that he was trying to send me wave of calm, but they were practically bouncing off of me. I turned towards him, feeling the fiery reaction to the situation finally rising up within me, but that was when Alice gasped, and my sight filled with the vision she was seeing.

_ Everything was black, but I could hear screaming that I realized was Bella with a roll of my stomach. Everything went quiet for a few seconds and I feared the worst. Then I heard a rough mans voice growl the word mine. There was a muffled thump, then a gasp, then the sound of a door being slammed and something heavy being forced in front of it. I listened to the sounds of heavy footsteps climbing stairs, exciting the house, and driving away. There was a moment of what I thought was silence, but then I realized I could hear the sound of the same heavy thing being moved again, just much slower. I could hear labored breathing, and what sounded like tears, and I realized Bella was trying to escape. The sound stopped and I thought she had given up, but then I heard the soft thumps of a small body climbing the stairs. With the squeak of a door I regained my sight, and saw the living room for just a second before Bella appeared climbing out of the basement. It looked like a skeleton dragging itself from hell. She had only a white t-shirt on, and her arms and legs stuck out from under it like little twigs. Her face was sunken in, and she had a black eye as well as several bruises that looked like handprints around her throat. She ran forward and threw the door open running out onto the porch. I caught sight of a calendar on the wall just before she was out of the house. The x's marking off the days denoted that this would take place at some point today. That's when I saw her from behind. I saw the blood on the back of the shirt. It was dripping down, almost obscuring the print the wound had made on the fabric, but I could still make out that the man had carved the word mine onto her back. _I could not stop the growls the broke free of chest at that._ She ran out into the yard. She looked around, seeing that the white car she had been abducted in was parked beside the house with a blue tarp pulled over it. She saw that there no road leading to the house and took off into the woods. She ran for a while, and all that could be heard was her laboring heart slowly being edged out by the roar of a river. She skidded to a stop on the edge of a cliff and my breath caught in my chest out of nervousness. She stood there, and began to have a conversation with herself. _

"_Why shouldn't I?" she asked to someone who wasn't there. Maybe the malnutrition was making her hallucinate._

"_You aren't even here Edward," she sighed and my heart sank. _

"_Why should I live for a voice in my head? Its even more insane than the rest of it." I wanted to answer her, to convince her to live as what she was planning to do finally set in._

"_Charlie got along just fine before me," she growled. It seemed her hallucination of me would try anything to convince her not to jump._

"_And he will be fine again, he has probably already moved on." She must be to far gone to really think about the type of man her father is._

"_And you promised that when you left I would be safe," she cried, and my head fell into my hands._

"_Do I look safe to you?" No she certainly did not._

"_No," she said with a look of determination on her face, and I began to panic. "Goodbye Edward. I love you. Alice if you somehow see this, please tell Charlie that I loved him, and I am sorry for how I acted before." _

_Then she jumped. She plummeted towards the water, and then plunged beneath the surface. After a few seconds she resurfaced face down. The current pulled her and smashed her into the cliff again and again. When the blood began to spread into the water the vision faded out._

"Oh my God," I yelled leaping out of my seat. "Did you recognize those cliffs? Were they the ones I think they are?"

"Yes," Alice rushed as she started shoving me towards the door. "On the Quillayute River. I don't think you'll make it before she jumps."

As I tore out of the house, I heard Jasper asking what she was talking about, and Alice explain her vision about Bella. I pushed my self as hard as I could run in the direction of Forks. I had an idea now where her captor lived, and I filed that fact away for later use. Those cliffs were about a five-mile hike off of Big Pine Way. People didn't get out that way very much since the cliffs weren't safe for diving.

I tore through the forest barely seeing anything around me. I had to cross Gig Harbor, and I skated around Cushman Lake sticking to the trees so I couldn't be seen. Once I was in the Olympic National Forest I was free to move faster. There was no one around to avoid detection. It felt like a lifetime before I recognized the trees surrounding Forks. I picked up a disgusting scent that alerted me to the fact that the wolves were no longer sticking to the treaty lines. That was of little consequence to me as I pushed myself forward. Soon I could smell her. Her blood had dripped onto the ground as she ran, and it was leading me to her. I was close. As I broke through the trees I saw the cliff, and I pushed off throwing myself out into the air. I looked down as I dove and saw the white fabric of Bella's shirt and her dark hair swirling in the water below. As soon as I hit the water I began maneuvering towards her. I swan as quickly as I could but I still heard the sickening smack of her head crashing into the rocky cliff side.

"Bella hold on," I called to her as I closed the distance.

I finally got to her and I pulled her into my arms and turned us so my body was between her and the rocks. I swam towards shore pulling her with me. Then I had to make a snap decision about what to do. She needed immediate medical attention, but her return would be highly publicized and I couldn't afford to implicate the family. When I made my decision I started running, holding Bella tightly while pulling my phone out to call Alice. She told me the family was already on the way to uphold the story that we had read about Bella in the paper and started our own search party. They would tell the police that I had gotten separated from them at some point, and I happened to find Bella on the shore of the river where she had to postpone her attempted escape out of exhaustion. Carlisle was currently racing to beat me to the hospital so it would look like we drove her in, rather than trying to explain how I ran for miles carrying her unconscious body.

I ran quickly through the woods, sticking close to the edge so I could follow them right to the edge of the hospital parking lot. Right when I broke through the trees to head to the hospital I saw the black car wiping into a parking space. Carlisle jogged over to join me as I slowed to what could pass for a human pace and we headed in through the doors to the ER together. I carried my love, while Carlisle flagged down a nurse and called for someone to call Charlie.


	8. Chapter 8

**BPOV**

I was in the meadow. My back was flush with the ground and the wildflowers were blowing in the wind. I could see the clear blue sky, blemished by only one fluffy white cloud floating along. There was a bird somewhere in the distance chirping. It was almost continuous, but I did not find it annoying. I sat up to look around, and noted that I didn't feel my body move when I did so, but I could see my body if I looked down at it.

If this was where I was going to spend my eternity, I was okay with that. It reminded me of Edward, but it no longer made me feel sad. I could think of Edward now and just feel peaceful. Our time together had been beautiful, and I could spend the rest of my forever remembering it fondly. I looked around me, and saw a dark figure in amongst the trees. I thought it might be Edward, and I mentally tried to urge him forward, but he simply dissipated.

I stood and started to walk towards where he had been, wanting to coax him out from where ever he had gone. I didn't make it more than a few steps forward before the world around me began to change. The horizon, or line where the trees met the forest floor split open. At first all I saw was a white line, but it spread and grew until I was surrounded by bright white.

I stepped forward hoping that the white would clear and I would see the forest again, but I ran into the edge of the white and bounced off of it. It felt almost rubbery, as if I was incased in a white balloon and I was not able to break through it. I started to push against the white wall, and it would give a bit but it felt like I was only stretching the rubbery wall. I felt certain that if I could push through this white wall I would see the meadow again, and maybe this time Edward would join me.

It seemed odd that my heaven had such an obstacle, but perhaps this was my punishment for having technically killed myself. I had a hard time believing God would actually send me to hell for what I had done though. It seemed an appropriate reaction to the situation I had found myself in. He had to be more forgiving than that. It did make me a little anxious though.

I began to increase the effort I put behind my pushes. I felt the strain of the strange white wall, and I knew I was making progress. As I pushed a little harder I felt a break in the pressure, and I saw a small hole that was an off white rather than the bright white I had been incased in. I sighed thinking I would have to push through many layers, but continued to push.

As the opening grew, sounds began to reappear. I heard the chirping sound again, but it sounded much more like a beep than a bird now. As the opening grew I saw a bright white spot in the middle of the off white I was seeing. I started to hear a rushing sound that would fluctuated every few seconds. After a bit I realized it was the sound of someone breathing. The off white opening had now filled all of my vision, and I realized that two my left I could see a fuzzy blue form, and leaning by my right was a black fuzzy form. It appeared that I was lying on my back again.

I blinked a few times and everything came into focus for me. The bright circle above me was an overhead light. The blue form was an uncomfortable looking chair. And the previously black form now had much more color. The first color to grab my attention was the head full of bronze hair. The beeping sound took off at a sprint when I realized whose hair that was, and I realized that I must be in the hospital and attached to a heart monitor.

That glorious head of hair pulled upward in response to the change in my heart beat, and I was greeted with his perfect face. There was a stutter in the beeping, and then it continued on normally.

"Thank god," he sighed staring into my eyes. "I didn't know if your eyes were going to open again."

"How long have they been closed?" I asked noticing that my voice was horse and it hurt my throat to speak.

"Shhh… don't talk now, it will hurt your throat." Edward soothed. "A few hours is all, but it's been touch and go."

"What are you doing here?" I whispered.

"I could leave if you want," he said sadly, but I shook my head. "I came back after I saw the paper, and then Alice had a vision. I was almost to late."

I was going to try an ask him to explain more, but there was a loud slamming noise as the door was thrown open and it crashed into the wall A very angry Charlie came storming in. He didn't seem to see that I was awake, only that Edward was sitting to close to me for his comfort.

"Get away from her!" He yelled as he charged forward.

Edward listened quickly not wanting to further upset Charlie. He moved to the corner of the room with his hands gently raised in defeat. This did not calm Charlie he approached me, to get a closer look, probably to see if I was awake, but that status was quickly changing. I felt myself slipping back into the sleep I had just escaped, and my eyes began to flutter closed.

"Where did you find her?" Charlie asked his voice softening; I felt his hand gently patting mine.

"In the river. My family and I came to start our own search party when we read about Bella in the paper," Edward said, it sounded like I was hearing him from a very far distance, as I feel deeper into sleep. "I almost didn't get to her in time."

"What do you mean?" Charlie asked in confusion.

"Well she had jumped from the Quillayute cliffs," Edward said in a pained voice. "She was running…"

I'm sure Edward said more, but I could no longer hear him. I was hidden in darkness, which was much more restful than the forest and then whiteness had been.

--

--

--

When I woke up again Edward was still there but Charlie had left. Edward was sitting next to my bed again, but he did not look as stressed out as he had before. His face lit up when he saw that my eyes were open, and he leaned in and put his elbows on my mattress, so he could bring his face closer to me.

"Hey! How are you feeling?" He smiled at me. "Only whisper though, it won't hurt as much."

"Hey," I said quietly. "What time is it? Actually what day is it?"

"Well, its about 2:00 a.m. so you've been here in the hospital for almost an entire night," Edward explained. "And its March 1st, at least it has been for two hours now."

"March," I gasped. Doing the math, and discovering that I had been gone for a month "Oh my God."

"What's the last day you remember?" Edward asked his voice colored with both sadness and curiosity.

"I remember most of the days I was gone," I explained softly. "But the last time I knew what the date was it was February second."

"Do you want to talk about it?" He said quietly.

"No," I said feeling the tears building up in my eyes and my throat. "Sorry."

"No, no," Edward soothed. "We don't have to talk about anything you don't want to love."

"Love," I mumbled confusion coloring my voice.

"Would you prefer that I not call you that anymore?" he asked sounding hurt.

"It's okay," I hurried not wanting him to be upset. "It just confuses me. I mean, since you don't love me anymore…"

"Bella, I do love you," Edward said solemnly.

"Please don't say that." I cried, the tears starting to actual fall. "It will hurt more when you leave. If you are even really here."

"I am here Bella," Edward said firmly. "And I will never leave you again. Unless you ask me too."

"You'll get bored of your distractions eventually," I said. "I don't mean that to sound negative either. Its just the way it is."

"Bella, I have left you under a terrible misconception," Edward said sounding riddled with guilt. "That day in the forest I told you terrible lies. I never stopped loving you, or wanting to be with you. I just wanted to keep you safe."

"Why couldn't you say it that way?" I whispered. "If that's the truth."

"I thought if you thought I didn't love you, then you could move on." Edward said quietly. "If you moved on, you could forget me and live a normal life."

"My life was nothing without you," I whispered before shuddering. "And then I really didn't have a life at all."

"You mean after you disappeared?" Edward prodded gently.

"Yeah," I whispered. "I was always in the dark. It was like being blind."

"I can't even imagine," Edward said quietly. "I'm so glad you escaped. I think I hear Charlie coming. He is going to have to interview you about the man and the time you were gone."

"On no," I rushed, feeling the panic rise up in me as my breathing became labored. "I don't think I can do this."

"Would it be helpful to you if I stayed and held your hand?" Edward asked while extending his hand out to me.

"Please," I begged. "Please don't leave me alone."

"Never," he promised me firmly giving my hand a gentle squeeze, as Charlie came through the door.


	9. Chapter 9

** Author's note- here is a song I listened to while writing this chapter: Damaged- Plum. I think it does a fairly good job of getting inside Bella's mind. I also listened to Hey Jude. **

Charlie walked quickly over and sat in the blue chair next to my bed. I could see him warring between concerned father, and official police officer. His face was flush, and his eyes were puffy. He had been crying. But more than that he looked tired. Not a late night out tired, but hasn't truly slept in a long time tired. He reminded me of what I looked like after Edward left.

"Bella," he croaked and the tears started again.

"Dad," I breathed. "I missed you so much."

"I'm so sorry I couldn't find you," he choked. "I failed you."

"No you didn't," I tried to soothe him. "Joe is tricky, and he is so worried about cleanliness, I doubt he left much evidence for you to follow."

"All we had was a witness to your abduction," Charlie coughed. "The Marks boy saw it from a distance. He was able to give us the model and color of the car but that was it. We haven't been able to find a car like that anywhere."

"He hides it beside his house," I whispered.

"Bella, how did you end up out there?" Charlie asked. "You usually came home right after work."

"I was let off early that day, I barely worked an hour." I explained quietly. "I was feeling anxious so I decided to go for a drive. I had started crying I pulled over. After I had calmed down I saw that the Marks' had motorcycles for sale in their driveway and I went to look at them. I know they are stupid Charlie, I wasn't really going to buy them."

"Its okay Bella, curiosity isn't a sin," Charlie said kindly. "What happened while you were looking at them."

"Joe Mason pulled over, but I didn't recognize him at the time," I continued. Squeezing Edward's hand when I realized I would have to edit the hallucinations out. "He asked me if I could help him because he was lost. He opened his door, and unfolded a map, so I came around the side to look. He told me he was trying to get to First Beach on La Push, and I was reaching out to show him the path to follow on the map when he grabbed me. He pulled me into the car, hitting my head on the doorframe in the process, and shoved me into the passenger's side. He knocked me unconscious with how hard he hit my head."

"This was the white Ford?" Charlie asked, taking notes in his small spiral notebook.

"Yeah, well I know it was white anyway. I didn't check the model or anything."

"What happened when you woke up?" Charlie asked, his voice becoming stiff with concern. I let my eyes drift closed, and held tighter to Edward's hand before continuing.

"I woke up in the dark. At first I thought I was blind." I explained. "I later found out he was keeping me in a hidden room under the stairs. Well it was probably just a closet actually. He came to check on me shortly after I had woken up. He had a flashlight, so it was the first time I saw anything. This was when I got a closer look at him. It was definitely Joe Mason. I recognized him from Newton's and some football game I had seen him at. He told me he had to do an inspection, and when I resisted he hit me. I learned quickly not to argue him."

I stopped then, not wanting to explain the inspections, or the three occasions he had molested me on. They made me feel dirty and I didn't want anyone to know about them. Charlie prodded me forward though. He needed to log everything into evidence. He asked if I wanted Edward to leave to make it easier but I would not allow him to make Edward leave. Reluctantly I told him everything. I told him about the white t-shirt, the inspections, the cleaning ritual, the inappropriate touching, the daily ration of a slice of bread, the beatings that came when I didn't obey, and finally about him carving something into my back. I told him that I didn't know what it said, and I wasn't sure that I wanted to know. I told him what Joe had told me about the twelve other girls, and how he admitted to having killed all of them. I told him how he said all the girls he abducted were supposedly sluts that he was trying to reform, and how he killed them when it was proven that he couldn't change them. I told him how he said he only had sex with them after he had killed them.

I cried quite a bit while I told him everything I had been through, but Edward helped me to sit up so he could hold me in his arms as I shook with my sobs. I felt him move twice to rub my back in a soothing manner, and stop himself. This made my heart ache even more. It looked like Charlie cried while I spoke but I tried to keep my eyes closed so I could continue. I felt Edward's tight jaw against the skin of my neck and I knew he was trying to be strong for me.

"I'll be sending the police out to the Mason place right away," Charlie said gruffly. "But I need you to give me a physical description anyway."

"He looked like he was in his late 30s. He has brown hair and brown eyes." I whispered hoarsely. "He has bags under his eyes, which sort of mar the sweet young man thing he has going for him. I think he was probably about 5'9" and less than 200 pounds. He always work jeans and a white t-shirt with some sort of flannel over shirt."

"Sounds like Joe," Charlie growled. "Will you be okay here if I go with the rest of the guys to arrest him and search the property? Or would you like me to stay here with you?"

"I'll be okay Dad." I whispered giving him a small smile. "I'm safe here."

"Okay. I love you baby," he choked as he leaned in to give me a brief but tight hug. "I'm so glad you made it home."

"I love you too Dad." I cried.

After that Charlie left. Edward climbed gingerly onto the bed with me, and held me close to him as he hummed my lullaby and gently ran his fingers through my hair. I leaned my face into his chest and breathed in his scent to calm myself. It was odd how quickly I could accept him back into my life, but I felt like I was getting a second chance at living and I didn't want to waste it without the man that I loved. It wasn't long before I was drifting to sleep in Edward's arms.

--

--

--

I was woken up sometime later by whispering voices. I kept my eyes closed and listened for a minute. It sounded like Carlisle was in the room. I opened my eyes, and immediately saw him standing at the foot of my bed looking over my chart.

"Hey Carlisle," I said with a bit of volume, noticing that my throat wasn't hurting as much.

"Good afternoon Bella," Carlisle said brightly. "Its very good to see you, though I do wish it was under different circumstances."

"Its good to see you too," I gushed.

"I'm here to do a bit of a check up, and to redress your wound." Carlisle explained and I nodded my approval. "It looks like the nutrient drip bags are helping. Your color is looking a little better. Are you hungry?"

"Starving," I admitted sheepishly, but with a slight giggled considering that I had indeed been starved.

"I'll go get you something to eat from the diner down the street." Edward offered sliding out of the bed. "What sounds better a burger or spaghetti?"

"How about a burger, but without the bread," I said. "Ooh can I have fries?"

"Anything you want love," Edward smiled as he headed towards the door. "I will be back soon."

"All right Bella, I want to check your motor skills a bit," Carlisle explained as he picked up one of my legs under the blanket and moved it around a bit. "Can you push against my hand?"

I did as he asked and he seemed pleased. He repeated the same test on my other leg. The he moved my arms around and hand me push his hand down with each arm. He noted that I had lost some muscle since I hadn't had room to move around, but that I would recover from that quickly with good diet and healthy exercise. Charlie came back in, as he was finishing up with my arms.

"We took Joe Mason into custody," he explained. "The other officers are looking around the property for evidence. I heard over the radio that they found the hidden room."

I just nodded, not sure what I should or could say. Charlie seemed to accept this as ok, and took a seat next to the bed waiting for Carlisle to continue with his examination.

"Ok Bella, all that's left is for me to check your stitches and rebadged your back." Carlisle said softly moving closer slowly, probably not wanting to startle me. "I'm going to need you to sit up, and hold the front of your gown so that it doesn't fall."

I did as he told me, and tried not to think about Joe's examinations. I tried to lock down my muscles so I wouldn't shake when he touched me, but I wasn't entirely successful. Carlisle was very gentle with removing the apparently dirty bandage on my back.

"Son of a bitch," Charlie growled. "I will kill him."

"Charlie, if you can't remain calm, I will have to ask you to leave," Carlisle said firmly. "I can't have you upsetting Bella when her heart is so weak."

"What does it say," I whispered. "Dad what does it say?"

"Bella, are you sure you want to know that?" Carlisle interjected.

"Yes," I whisper yelled.

"It says MINE baby." Charlie answered.

I heard the racing beeping sound before I realized that I was freaking out. My breathing was getting out of my control, but I felt completely out of control. I felt like I was ruined by how that man had branded me. I started to get dizzy, and I felt Carlisle rushing to get a new bandage on me so he could do something to help me. I vaguely registered Edward entering the room with a Styrofoam box and a scared look on his face before I blacked out.


	10. Chapter 10

When I woke up again, I left my eyes closed, but I listened to what was going on around me. I could hear the quiet beeping in the background, and it was grating on my nerves. I would have to see if Carlisle would turn the sound off. I could hear two voices talking, and after a little while I realized it was Edward and Charlie.

"So is it better to just pretend there is nothing on her back?" Charlie asked quietly.

"No, I think we just shouldn't talk about it unless she brings it up." Edward suggested.

"I can understand her being upset, but do you think she will faint anytime she thinks of it?" Charlie said with a catch in his voice.

"I think it was the shock of it that had gotten to her," Edward said sounding upset s well. "She hadn't known what it said before."

"I could just kill that man," Charlie growled.

"I know," Edward said, and I hoped Charlie didn't notice the steal there.

"No one is going to kill anyone," I whispered finally opening my eyes to see that Charlie and Edward were standing together at the window. It was actually a beautiful moment.

"Hey sleepy head," Edward said turning to give me my favorite crooked grin. "Are you still hungry?"

"Yes," I said with enthusiasm. "I suppose I've slept long enough to ruin what you bought me?"

"Nope, I can run and heat it up and it will be just fine," Edward said and quickly headed out of the room.

Charlie came to sit next to me in the little blue chair by my bed. He looked old and tired, but he gave me the best smile he could muster and reached out to pat my hand gently. He looked like he didn't know what to say.

"Sorry if I gave you a scare earlier," I apologized. "It just caught me off guard I guess."

"Its okay," Charlie said, sounding a bit gruff with emotion again. "How's your throat feeling?"

"Its not as sore anymore," I said with a smile. "I think it was hurting mostly because of the river water."

"I wish you hadn't jumped like that," Charlie said quietly, worried about my health, not knowing that I had been jumping intentionally. "But I am also glad you did, or you might not have been found."

"I'm glad that Edward found me," I said softly, knowing that I meant it. "And I'm glad they came back."

"About that," Charlie began. "Are you going to be okay with that? Edward seems to be a good influence right now, but what will it be like when you get out of here? I don't know if I can forget what he did to you."

"Dad," I sighed. "I know it was pretty bad after he left, but I know what I want, and what I can't live without."

"And if he leaves again?" Charlie said quietly, forcing the hard questions.

"He won't leave me," I said firmly.

"If he did?" Charlie pushed on.

"Well, I've learned to appreciate life Dad," I said quietly. "I love Edward, but I wouldn't waste my life like that again if he left, which he won't."

"Ok," Charlie said caving. "I just want you to be happy."

"I will be," I whispered, wishing I could say that I was, but I felt to many unhappy emotions under the surface to really claim happiness.

Just then Edward came back into the room, and I could smell the burger and fries. It smelled like the best thing that had ever been placed in front of me. He opened the box after setting it on the little rolling bedside table, and set a coke in front of me with a smile.

"Burger without the bun m'lady," He said with a chuckle.

"Thanks," I sighed, and then I dug into the first meal I had eaten in a month. There was never a more glorious meal.

--

-

--

-

--

They kept me at the hospital for a week. I was feeling much better, but they wanted to get my BMI up a bit before they took me off of the nutrient drips and let me leave. I could understand Carlisle's concern, because I sort of resembled and eating disorder patient, or perhaps just a concentration camp survivor. When I finally got to leave there was a bit of color in my cheeks, and my skin didn't look like it was about to rip from being stretched to tight anymore. I had a long way to go before I would look healthy though. I was certainly ready to be done with hospital food though; Edward couldn't always bring me food form the corner diner.

Alice, who hadn't gotten much visiting time with me at the hospital since I was wrapped up in Edward when I wasn't being interviewed by the police, accompanied me home with Charlie. One reporter was waiting in our yard trying to ambush me, but Alice gave him a dirty look and hurried me into the house. Charlie stayed outside to deal with him.

"Vultures," She grumbled once we had closed the door.

"I suppose," I chuckled. "Its not like I'm going to talk to them, so I just pretend they aren't there."

"Its probably a good approach," Alice giggled. "Let's get you a shower."

Alice had helped me shower after the Phoenix incident, and it hadn't been a big deal to take my clothes off in front of her then. But I was sure she heard my heart rate increase at the thought of it now when he brow creased slightly before she turned to hurry up the stairs. I walked slowly behind her, trailing my hand on the stair banister. I couldn't believe how long I had been away from home.

I followed Alice into my room, where she was digging through my closet for something to put on after the shower. I saw her grabbing a dress and I growled at her. All I wanted to wear was some sweatpants and a t-shirt. It wasn't like I was going to leave the house. Alice clicked her tongue at me, but she put the dress back anyway. I didn't entirely get my way, but the pink yoga pants and white thermal shirt she grabbed looked comfortable, yet cute enough to please Alice.

Alice grabbed my bag of toiletries off my desk, and I stared at that silly English essay I had been planning to work on after work that day so long ago. It was so weird to be back, and see that nothing had changed, and yet everything about me was different. I turned with a sigh and followed Alice to the bathroom. I saw that she was running a bath for me, and while this pleased me I did quirk my brow at her as she had said shower.

"Vision." She said simply. "You fainted."

"Ahh," was all I gave. I hadn't wanted to admit how tired I was already feeling, and it was a bit of a relief to know that I would never have to tell Alice.

"So as weird as it sounds, I'm just going to tape some plastic wrap over your bandaging," Alice said as she pulled t he supplies out of her purse. "It should keep everything dry so you can enjoy your bath without much difficulty."

"Ok," I said feeling a bit confused, and anxious about having to take of my shirt.

"So if you just want to face the wall when you take of your shirt and bra," Alice said gently, understanding my hesitation. "I'll get that taken care of and then I can wait in your room or something until you're ready for me to take it off."

"Ok," I said quietly, and I turned towards the wall and did what she said.

It felt weird to have the plastic on my back, but it made sense since I couldn't get the stitches wet. I tried not to think about how bad my back must look as Alice shut the bathroom door behind her. I stripped the rest of my clothes off and climbed quickly into the tub.

The warm water was glorious. I hadn't been able to have a real bath, rather than some twisted sponge bath, in a month and in that first moment of the water touching my skin I realized just how much I had missed it. I let out a small contented sigh as I sat climbed the rest of the way in, and settled gently into the water. I felt certain I could just lie in that water for hours, but I was actually supposed to be doing something.

I set to work washing my hair, and I almost cried when I smelt the familiar strawberry scent. It was like magic to have something that was mine. That wasn't being accused of being dirty and then being stolen away from me. I used my loofah and the old Irish spring soap that Charlie loved so much to clean myself. It was amazing how much better than made me feel. It was hard to stop myself from scrubbing to hard because of how dirty I felt on the inside, but the clean scent and the suds cascading off my skin felt like healing magic after such a long time.

When I had finished cleaning myself I just sat there in the warm water relaxing for a bit. I let my headrest against the back of the tub while I closed my eyes and hummed to myself. It had been a long time since I had felt so warm. It was very relaxing in the tub, and I felt all of my muscles loosening further than they had been allowed to since before Edward had left. A pounding on the door pulled me out of my reverie.

"I know you are comfortable Bella, but you're about to fall asleep." Alice called through the door. "Drowning on your first day home doesn't sound like such a good idea."

"Be right out," I grumbled as I pulled myself up out of the water.

I dried off, and put on the clothes Alice had picked out, even though I would have to take the top back off for Alice to remove the plastic. I grabbed my toothbrush and set to work. I had never been more pleased in my life to taste that strong minty flavor. When I had finished I grabbed my bag of toiletries, left my towel wrapped around my hair, and padded slowly back to my bedroom. Alice was sitting cross-legged on my bed waiting for me. She patted the spot next to her and I set my bag down beside the bed before joining her.

"Turn around," she said softly pulling out a new roll of gauze and some sort of cream.

I did as I was told, and she slowly rolled up the back of my shirt so I could keep my front covered but she could remove the plastic and redo my bandaging. Her fingers were so gentle I hardly felt them. After a minute or two she had finished and pulled my shirt back down. She very gently ran her hands over my back, soothing me and I sighed relaxing.

"Do you think you'll start back to school tomorrow?" Alice asked as she pulled the towel away from my hair and began running my brush through it.

"I guess. Will I even get to graduate this year now?" I asked Alice feeling sullen at the thought of having to redo my senior year.

"Yes you will." Alice said cheerily. "Friday the principle will have you take a sort of bench mark test to substitute for your missing the end of the last term, which you will pass with flying colors. All of the teachers want you to be able to graduate, and they are so glad that you made it home in one piece."

I was glad that Alice hadn't said safe and sound. I guess I was safe now I just didn't feel sound. I was relieved that I would get to graduate with my class, but I wasn't sure what I was going to do afterward now. I wanted to spend an eternity with Edward, but I worried that he would still refuse me the vampire life I still craved. If anything I wanted it more now. It just wasn't safe for me to be human.


	11. Chapter 11

I started to fall asleep as Alice was rubbing my back, but she stopped just before I drifted off and I was grateful for it. The light hadn't been on, and I was afraid to fall asleep alone. In the hospital they had kept me doped up until the last night, so I had dreamless sleep. The last night I had nightmares. Edward would always wake me up before they could get to bad, so I wanted him here when I was trying to sleep in my own room. I was going to have to invest in a nightlight though, because my lamp was a bit bright.

It seemed Edward was running late. I kept checking my cell phone at one to two minute intervals. When it hit nine o'clock and he still wasn't here I decided to call Carlisle to talk about something else that had been on my mind as of late. If only to preoccupy my mind from thinking Edward had left again. I waited patiently as the phone rang, and breathed a sigh of relief when I heard the small click that meant it had been answered.

"Hello," Carlisle's smooth voice greeted me.

"Carlisle," I sighed, glad to hear his voice.

"Hello Bella," Carlisle said cheerily. "How are you doing?"

"I'm doing okay," I said, and it was only a tiny lie. "I wanted to talk to you about something."

"Okay," He said calmly. I wondered if Alice had told him what I would be calling about tonight. "What's on your mind?"

"I've been thinking a lot about my humanity," I began shakily. "I know Edward would be upset if he knew I was talking to you about this, but I need to state my case."

"Bella, would it be alright if I put you on speaker phone so this can be a family discussion?" Carlisle asked nicely. I knew this was just for my benefit since everyone would be able to hear what I was saying either way.

"That's fine I guess." I said softly. I heard a beep, and then their muffled voices could be heard in the background.

"Okay, you're on speaker phone now sweetheart," I heard Esme in the background.

"I'm calling to ask a favor I suppose." I said softly, feeling my nerves build up at the thought of Edward sitting somewhere in the silence I was hearing over the phone. "I want to discuss the status of my humanity. Please at least hear me out before you tell me no."

"We will listen objectively," Carlisle said over a grumbling in the background I knew to be Edward. "Go ahead Bella."

"It has always been a risk for me to be human," I began. "Both due to tempting members of your family, and to my own ability to continually put myself in mortal peril simply by walking across a flat surface. Of course we must also take into account that I have horrible luck that draws predators to me like a magnet. It simply isn't safe for me to be human. That path only leads to my demise. I'm asking you to make me a vampire. Maybe we should vote. Do you want me to join your family?"

"I suppose we should vote," Carlisle said calmly. "Esme would you like to go first?"

"Sure," Esme said softly from a short distance away from the phone. "Of course Bella. I already consider you a daughter."

"Thank you Esme," I said softly holding back the emotion in my voice. I wished I could hug her.

"Hey Bella, its Emmett," he said in booming voice from a further distance. "Hell yeah I want you to join the family!"

"Thanks Emmett," I said softly.

"Its Jasper Bella," he said quietly. It sounded like he was the furthest from the phone. "I vote yes."

"Thank you Jasper," I said, the shock evident in my voice. Jasper and I had never been particularly close, and our relationship was obviously strained by my most recent birthday.

"Hey sweetie," Alice's voice said cheerily from the same distance as Jasper. "Of course I want you to be my sister."

"Thank you Alice," I said with the obvious love for Alice dripping off of my words.

"It's Rosalie now. I'm sorry Bella but no," she rushed. "Don't get me wrong. I have no qualms about having you as a sister. Its just that there was no one their to vote no for me."

"I understand Rosalie," I said quietly, hoping she wouldn't hear the disappointment in my voice. "Edward?"

"I'm here Bella," his glorious voice said from right next to the phone. "This is not the way I want you to join my family."

"Okay," I said, unsuccessful in disguising the break in my voice. "The majority points to yes. Carlisle, when do you want to do this?"

"Bella," Edward said in a pained voice in the background.

"Tonight?" I said quietly.

"Absolutely not," Edward yelled. "Think about this. Charlie just got her back. You know he will send his police back out in full force to try and find her again. We have to at least wait until she graduates and moves out on her own."

"Bella, he has a point," Carlisle said calmly. "Part of being a Cullen is keeping the secret."

"After graduation then," I said trying to hide the disappointment in my voice.

"I can do that." Carlisle said. I heard a crashing in the background that I knew instinctually that Edward had broken something. "Bella, Edward is on his way to see you."

"Okay," I said, fearing the arrival of angry Edward.

"He wants me to get off the phone before I can promise you something else," Carlisle said in a quiet voice.

"Okay," I said softly. "Thank you all for your time."

"Always," Esme said lovingly before the line went dead.

I had barely set my phone down on the bedside table before Edward was climbing through my window. He immediately began pacing at the foot of my bed. Surprisingly he didn't look angry, he looked like he was plotting something.

"You aren't going to come up with a way to get out of this," I said argumentatively. He just held a hand up to me and continued to pace.

I waited patiently for him to finish. I pulled the blanket up to my chin, while hugging my legs underneath it. I was feeling scared of what Edward might come up with. As much as I wanted to join his family, if I were honest with myself, I would admit that I was terrified to stay human. What if Joe got out of jail? What if someone like Joe found me? What if some other sadistic vampire rolled into town and stumbled upon me? I was pulled from my musings when Edward folded his body sinuously onto the foot of my bed and sat facing me.

"Bella, what do you really want?" he asked in his velvet voice.

"You," I said sounding almost stupid in my reverence.

"Something that you don't already have." Edward said with a small smile in his voice. I hesitated then. I was fearful of suggesting what I really wanted.

"For you to be the one to change me," I whispered.

"And what would you be willing to trade for that?" he said firmly. My heart began to race. Was he actually considering this?

"Anything," I rushed.

"Five years?" Edward pushed.

"Absolutely not!" I argued.

"Two years?" he tried.

"No way." I said.

"How much does this mean to you?" He grumbled. "One year?"

"NO Edward," I argued. "You are going to be a teen forever, I want to stay as close to your age as I can."

"Forget time then," Edward said, his voice changing, becoming more intense. "I will change you under one condition. Marry me first."

"Marry you?" I blurted out in shock.

"Yes," Edward said firmly. My mind was racing. Was I ready for something like this? I wasn't sure. Did I love him enough? Yes I did. Was I willing to make that compromise? After I thought for a while, I realized I was.

"That's not even a proper proposal.." I stalled while I worried over the thought of telling Charlie.

"May I try again then?" He said with a smile and I gave him a small nod. To my surprise when he lowered himself to one knee he actually pulled a ring out of his pocket. I hadn't realized that he had given this much forethought. "My life before you was a world without a sun. You bring light and warms to my cold existence. My love for you is never ending, and I want to give it to you for the rest of my life. The thought of even a day away from you makes me heart ache. I promise to love you for every single day of forever. Will you give me the great gift of becoming my wife?"

"Yes," I whispered through my tears as I climbed down on the floor to join him. He quickly slid the ring onto my finger before I could wrap my arms around him, and bury my face in his chest. In the back of my mind I thought about how Rene would freak out and tell me I was making a huge mistake, but I couldn't find it in myself that agree with her. If I wanted to spend an eternity with Edward, it made sense that I would do so as his wife.


	12. Chapter 12

Returning to school was a terror and relief at the same time. I was afraid to be around so many people and loud noises. I was worried about what people might be saying. I was also relieved to be able to have the option to go to school. I was relieved that I was healthy enough to at least walk around the school; the Edward watched and listened closely for sounds of weakness. I was also reassured by the weight of Edward's engagement ring on my finger. It was a beautiful ring that had belonged to his grandmother so many years ago. It was a black diamond that made me feel like a rebel for some reason. He had explained to me that the diamonds had been formed long ago from the minerals that crash landed on earth through meteorites. He said that only something out of this world was good enough for me, and I blushed furiously. I worried a bit about what people would say about the ring, but found reassurance in the fact that it did not look like your typical engagement ring.

Edward showed up right after Charlie left to pick me up for school. The silver Volvo in my driveway was both familiar and foreign to me after such a long time. Edward opened the door for me, and when I settled into my seat I heard that he had the recording of my lullaby playing. He had realized how stressed I would be feeling this morning, I loved him even more for that. He quickly slid into the driver's seat and took my hand as he wiped out of the driveway. I felt like I was home after a long long trip. Edward's absence had created many voids in my life.

When we pulled into the school parking lot I anxiously pulled my jacket tighter around my shoulders. I felt self-conscious, as if they would be able to see my back through my jacket and my sweater. Edward gave me a knowing look and gentle squeezed my hand.

"It'll be okay love," he said softly before getting out the car to come around and open my door.

I could feel everyone turning to look at us as Edward took my hand. I knew that the Cullens had returned to school last week, so I was the oddity that was drawing their attention. I wasn't sure I wanted to know what they thought about my disappearance. Jessica probably thought that I had run away or something after the stunt I pulled in Port Angeles the night before my kidnapping.

"They're staring," I whined into Edward's shoulder as I buried my face feeling my eyes start to burn with the suggestion of tears.

"Let them then," Edward said quietly as he rubbed my back as gently as he could. "Just pretend they aren't there. They don't matter anyway."

I tried to listen to what he told me to do, but I felt my face flushing with embarrassment anyway. We hurried into the building and stopped briefly at my locker. Edward had to listen for the clicks because I could no longer remember my combination. I almost cried at that but he simply broke part of the lock quickly and said we would go to the office and tell them I needed a new one. After grabbing my books Edward lead me to English, and I felt a little better once we settled into our seats. I felt almost normal.

The morning went by quickly. I tried to pretend I didn't see the stares or hear the whispers but I failed. During the short ten-minute break between Calculus and History Edward rushed me into and empty classroom to help me get my tears under control without and audience. Most of the whispers were innocent enough, just filled with curiosity. But those that drifted over from Lauren and Jessica hurt me. They were filled with accusations about how odd I was. Obviously Jessica had told Lauren about Port Angeles, and they both thought I had wandered off with this supposed kidnapper. It wasn't until lunch when I heard Lauren stage whisper that I must have paid of the reports to write me in a good light that I even knew there had been an article in the paper.

Edward tried to shuffle me to the food line, but I saw that Lauren was holding a newspaper and I lunged before anyone was expecting it. Lauren screamed, as if I was going to attack her, but I simply stole her paper. I felt a sickening turn in my stomach when I saw Joe Mason's picture on the front page, but I quickly fought to get myself under control. I took as seat at the nearest table before my shaking legs could dump me on the floor.

_**Self named serial killer The Owner arrested**_

_ Tuesday, Joe Mason, of Forks Washington was taken into custody after the heroic escape of his most recent victim Isabella Swan. Swan managed to wiggle her way out of a tiny closet under the stairs in the basement of Mason's house that had been wedged closed by a book shelf when Mason left the house. Swan ran through the forest, diving off a cliff into the Quillayute River in her haste to escape. Search party members Edward and Carlisle Cullen found the girl and rushed her to Forks General Hospital._

_ When police were given a name they went to the Mason property to make their arrest. Upon searching the property for evidence they found Mason's journal that denoted many more crimes that he had committed. The journal lead police to the graves of twelve other missing teen girls over the last 12 years. It also went into detail about his torture methods, and how he marked his victims. Test have to be done on his first victims to see if they match his pattern as well, but his most recent victims clearly show the scarring of his brand. It seems he gleaned his name from the fact that he carves the word mine into the back of his victims._

_ The bodies were found buried in order of the year that they were abducted. Each case was reported in this paper, but like the police, our writers were not aware that the yearly disappearances around this area were all tied to the same man. We can now connect all the dots for our readers._

_ Rachel Maywood, age 16, disappeared from Port Angeles on 1998 as she was leaving a department store. Amber Richardson, age 18, disappeared from La Push in 1999 off of a road that lead to the beach. Jessianne Halbert, age 14 and the youngest victim, disappeared from Seattle in 2000 from the inside of an arcade. Michelle Thompson, age 20 and the oldest victim, disappeared from Hoquiam in 2001 as she was leaving a late night waitressing shift. Elizabeth Harris, age 17, disappeared from Forks in 2002 while walking home from a football game. Jessica Baxter, age 16, disappeared from Port Angeles in 2003 while she was reading on the boardwalk. Amanda Meyers, age 17, disappeared from Seattle in 2004 while begging for change, she was homeless. Teresa Manning, age 15m disappeared from La Push in 2005 while combing the beach for shells. Miranda Talsdale, age 18, disappeared from Seattle in 2006 while riding her bike. Brittney Moore, age 19, disappeared from Hoquiam in 2007 after leaving a midday babysitting job. Alexis Peters, age 17, disappeared from La Push in 2008 from the beach. Heidi Johnson, age 16, disappeared from Port Angeles in 2009 from her yard. Thus concludes the list of the dead. While it is sad news, hopefully the families of these women can find peace in the closure of knowing where their missing daughters went._

As I finished the article I felt the world closing in on me. I could feel the sweat building on my forehead, and my stomach was turning horribly. I felt like I might faint, but I turned to the side trying to head out of the lunch room, dropping the paper in my haste. I didn't even make a step forward before I felt my knees giving out and the bile rising up in my throat. I felt Edward catch me before I could fall, but that did not stop me from vomiting all over the floor. I was terribly embarrassed, but all I could do was cry, and try not to vomit again. I felt everything growing dark around me, and I realized I was fainting just as I felt Edward picking me up bridal style and rushing out of the cafeteria.


	13. Chapter 13

I woke up later in my own bed. I had to think about what had happened for a moment, but then I remembered my episode in the lunchroom. Edward must have rushed me home. I looked around my room, and saw that Edward was sitting in the rocking chair looking out the window. I realized that my mouth tasted horribly and sat up getting ready to run to the bathroom. My movement to get up caught Edward's attention.

"Don't rush," he soothed as he crossed quickly to me. "Can I get you anything?"

"No," I said softly. "I just need a human moment."

"Are you okay to go by yourself," Edward said, concern dripping from his voice.

"Yeah, I'm feeling okay now. I just need to brush my teeth." I explained as I stood up and started walking towards the door.

"Okay, I will go put something together for you to eat." Edward said as he started to head out of the room as well.

I gave him a smile before I walked into the bathroom and closed the door behind me. I was again very grateful for the taste of mint. I washed my face and brushed my hair so I would look more like a living person. When I looked presentable again I headed down to the kitchen to join Edward. He was just setting a bowl of clam chowder on the table when I sat down.

"That smells delicious," I said quietly giving Edward a smile.

"I hope it tastes alright," Edward said. He was always nervous about cooking for me. "Charlie called when you were sleeping, I explained what happened to him so he wouldn't rush you off to the hospital again."

"Thanks," I whispered between bites. "This is really good by the way."

"Thanks," Edward said with a chuckle. "So, for a rapid change of subject, I think we need to talk to Charlie tonight. Also Alice is upset that we haven't spoken to her about the wedding yet."

"Good thing you're bullet proof. Charlie isn't going to be happy about this." I laughed. "If it weren't for my just having gotten home he would think we were getting married because of a baby on the way."

"I wish I could give you a baby," Edward said sadly. "That's just one more thing I will be stealing from you."

"Stop it," I grumbled. "I don't want children anyway. I wouldn't want to bring a child into a world as unsafe as this one."

"You will never be unsafe again Bella," Edward vowed, and then his phone started vibrating. He answered it, but he was talking to quickly for me to hear anything until he hung up. "Alice is on her way to talk about wedding plans. Sorry."

"It was going to happen eventually," I chuckled. "Talking to her will be easier than Charlie anyway."

"Touché," Edward chuckled, but stopped when the door clicked closed announcing the arrival of Alice.

"Bella," Alice whined as she traipsed in and sat across the table from me. "Why are you giving me so many restrictions?"

"Because I want simple and quick," I sighed. "You have wiggle room with the decorative stuff though."

"What are you two talking about?" Edward prodded with a smile.

"Bella would have said that the wedding has to happen by August, she has final say on the guest list, and it shouldn't be a huge wedding," Alice said gaining enthusiasm. "As long as I stick to those rules, you guys don't elope to Vegas."

"Vega," Edwards said with interest, most likely to put Alice on edge.

"Don't you dare," Alice growled. "Charlie will be home in 15 minutes, so you guys should get ready to tell him."

"Is he going to shoot Edward?" I asked apprehensively.

"No," Alice laughed. "But he will ask for you to visit often, which will make you feel guilty."

"He has to understand that even if I were truly going to college in the fall I wouldn't be able to visit much." I whined. "The difference now is that I can't ever visit. How will he think I died?"

"Lets not be morbid," Edward, said darkly, probably thinking about how close I had come. "There's plenty of time before we have to worry about that."

"What about the honeymoon?" Alice asked with a devilish grin, making me blush.

"Alice!" Edward chided. "I doubt Bella wants something like that."

"Actually," I said in a nearly inaudible voice. "That's not entirely true."

"What?" Edward gasped. "You want that?"

"Yes," I whispered. "It might not be the easiest thing in the world, but I still want it."

"Well, after your change we can work on it." Edward said, surprisingly sounding nervous.

"Oh you too," Alice chuckled before she flitted out of the kitchen, calling to us over her shoulder. "Charlie will be here in five minutes."

I put my bowl in the sink, and ran some water in it before turning to head into the living room. Edward fell into place behind me, but I wasn't paying much attention to him. I was thinking about how I wasn't so sure I wanted to wait to loose my humanity before I shared myself with my future husband. I filed that away to think about at another time, so I could prepare myself for this conversation that was coming with Charlie.

Waiting out the last few minutes before he arrived home were absolutely painful. By the time I heard him climbing the porch steps I thought my heart was going to be right out of my chest. Edward tried to soothe me, but it did no good. I was determined to be nervous about this. Charlie closed the door behind him, and I heard the thumps of his boots being removed.

"Bells?" He called from the front hall.

"We're in here Charlie," Edward called.

"He still has his gun," I whisper yelled at him, but it was too late. Charlie was turning the corner into the living room immediately.

"Hello you too," Charlie said jovially as he sat down in the chair across from us, his face quickly becoming concerned. "What's wrong Bella?"

"Nothing's wrong dad," I said as calmly as I could manage. "Everything is fine."

Edward frowned beside me, and I knew it was at my word choice. He would have preferred perfect or amazing, fine would not suit how very happy he was to be engaged to me.

"Then why are you sweating bullets Bella?" Charlie barked, his suspicions growing.

I looked to Edward my mouth opening and closing with my inability to think of how to say it. I quickly wiped the sweat from my face, but I couldn't wipe away the blush that was making my face burn. Edward realized I wasn't going to speak, so he took over for me.

"I realize I have done this a bit out of order," Edward explained. "But we have some exciting news for you. I've already asked Bella, and she said yes, so as to not disrespect her answer, I am asking for your blessing. Will you give us your blessing to get married?"

"Married?" Charlie said quietly. At first he looked angry, and then he just looked shocked, but eventually he started to look defeated. "I suppose I should have seen this coming."

"Are you okay dad?" I asked quietly, fighting the urge to hide my face in Edward's shoulder.

"Don't you worry about me," Charlie said gruffly. "When are you two planning to do this by?"

"This summer," Edward said cheerily. "We want to live in an apartment of our own during college, and we'd like to do that properly."

He had Charlie caught on that one, the lie about college aside. Charlie couldn't very well say that he would prefer that we lived in sin. Charlie looked shocked at those words, but it then it occurred to me after hearing my story the thought of what would make our living together unmarried a sin being a possibility probably seemed odd. I knew that I should have no interest in things like that after what I had experienced, but I wanted it. A part of me was aware that my desire could stem from the need to feel normal again, but I tried not to analyze it much.

"You'll still visit me won't you Bella," Charlie said, the sadness very apparent in his voice.

"Charlie," I groaned. "You know I'll try, but I am looking at going to college in Alaska, it's a long way from here."

"I know baby," Charlie said sadly. "I Just can't believe how soon you will be leaving."

"I am an adult," I said as softly as I could.

"I know that, but you'll always be my little girl." Charlie said staring at his hands.

The talk was pretty much over after that. We talked a little about how Alice would be planning it, and Charlie said that I had to be the one to tell Rene. This was supposed to scare me, but I couldn't fear Rene after I had been through much scarier things. She was not a fan of marriage, particularly at such a young age.

When I called her, she was surprisingly excited for me. She tried to explain that she thought young marriage was a bad idea for her, but that I always knew what I was doing with my life. It was hard for me to wrap my head around the idea of her being okay with me getting married. But I took it as a relief that I wouldn't have to argue with her.


	14. Chapter 14

We returned to school the next morning trying to pretend that we hadn't had such a monumental evening, and that I hadn't missed the afternoon classes due to a break down. When I slid out of the Volvo everyone was staring again, but it was a little easier to take Edward's hand and pretend that nothing was happening. We were almost to the school door when Jessica approached us.

"Bella?" she said quietly, and I pitied her when I saw the look Edward was giving her.

"Yes Jess," I responded trying to make my heart rate stay low even though I felt the panic rising in my throat.

"I'm sorry that Lauren and I were being so mean yesterday," she said as her eyes dropped to the ground in shame. "I was upset by our trip to Port Angeles before you disappeared, and I let my anger build over the time you were away. I never stopped and tried to understand why you were acting that way. I know you would never intentionally wander off to some serial killer though, I was out of line to say any of the things that I was saying."

"I forgive you Jessica," I said softly, but I felt Edward stiffen at my side. He obviously didn't agree with my choice. "I had some weird episode when we were in Port Angeles that even I don't understand, but the whole incident the next day was just a terrible mistake."

"What happened anyway?" Jessica asked, and for the first time she seemed to genuinely care rather than just wanting a scoop.

"Bella, you don't have to answer that," Edward whispered into my hair when he felt me shiver.

"No its okay Edward. I have to learn to deal with it." I said quietly before turning back to Jessica. "It was stupid. I was looking at the bikes that the Mark's boy was selling, and he pulled over asking for directions. It seemed innocent enough to go around and show him how to get there on the map. I just didn't realize what would happen when I was within his reach."

"God, I feel terrible for what I was saying yesterday," Jessica groaned.

"Just let it go Jess," I said softly. "We should go to class."

On that Edward shuffled me away. He was rubbing my arms trying to soothe me, obviously picking up on the spike in my heartbeat. We sat down in class, and I was able to let my mind slip easily back to the attentive and carefree student I had been before. It felt like an amazing feat, and I was proud to be able to do it.

We went through the morning without event. Less people were staring at me, seeming to become reacquainted to my return to school. The teachers still looked at me sadly, but it was easy to ignore them. I was busy preparing for the placement test I would be taking this afternoon anyway. When lunch came around I was ready to eat but curious about where exactly we would be sitting.

To my surprise we sat with the old group. I didn't know if everyone was ready for that, but they seemed to accept us without question. I leaned into Edward's shoulder playing a bit with my salad while I listened to Mike and Tyler talking about some game they had played in the Friday before. I was just about to settle in to actually eating my lunch when I heard Angela trying to get Alice's attention. I looked up and saw the tell tale gaze that meant she was having a vision.

"Nap time already Alice?" Edward asked after a jerking motion that meant he had kicked her under the table.

"Sorry about that," Alice chuckled, giving him a quick look before rearranging her face into something considered normal. "I must have been day dreaming."

For the rest of lunch it looked like Alice and Edward were having some sort of silent conversation, but I couldn't figure it out, and they weren't saying anything out loud. Edward hurried me off to gym class and kissed my cheek gently before I walked into the locker room but he still said nothing about what Alice had seen.

I stumbled through gym, heavily aware of my lack of physical strength. The teacher eventually sent me to jog laps on my own, because the weight training that the class was doing was too much for me this early. I finished out the class, grabbed a shower, and then headed to the office where I would take the exam. The secretary greeted me with a smile and led me into the nurse's office. I was going to ask why she was taking me in there, but I saw the test on the table, and guessed that it must be the only available space for me to use.

"Just bring it out to me when you're done hon," she said softly as she left the room.

I set to work on the test and was surprised at how it wasn't very challenging. It seemed odd to me that I could no longer remember my locker combination, but calculus and the subject matter of our English books were still fresh in my mind. Perhaps because I had put so much focus into my schooling before my disappearance I had cemented them into my mind. I finished up the test just before the final bell rang for the day, and when I handed it to the secretary the test I felt certain that I had aced it.

Edward was waiting for me just outside the office, and I took his hand with a smile. He gifted me with his perfect crooked smile, and I had to stifle the sigh that tried to break forth. He walked me to the car, and I noted that Alice didn't seem to be riding home with us this afternoon. I wondered why she would be running home instead.

"So what did Alice see at lunch?" I asked, noticing that Edward seemed shocked that I asked.

"Oh just Jasper," he said dismissively. "She saw him wandering in the south and she wasn't sure why he was there."

"Oh," I said, letting to the topic drop as we got into the car and drove away from the school.

We got to my house quickly. Edward still drove to fast; at least some things never change. He took my bag and then my hand to help me from the car and lead me into the house. He pulled the key from under the mat to let us into the house, and followed me up to my room. I fired up my computer realizing that I hadn't emailed Rene since the day I had gotten out of the hospital, so she was sure to be getting anxious. I was just settling in to write when I heard Edward sigh.

I turned and saw him staring at the broken remnants of the radio the family had given me for my birthday so long ago. I gave him a sad look, opting not to explain why I had clawed it out of the dashboard. He seemed to understand without me saying, and returned it to the black garbage bag in my closet.

"You didn't get much use out of your gifts did you?" he said sadly moving over towards my bed.

"Well most of them disappeared anyway," I said giving him a knowing look.

"About that…" Edward trailed off as he pulled one of my floorboards up and pulled out the CD, pictures, and plane tickets that had disappeared the same day that he had. All I could do was gasp.

"They were there the entire time?" I almost yelled at him.

"Sorry," Edward said guiltily. "I still wanted you to have a piece of me."

"Oh Edward," I said sadly. "I'd rather have all of you."

"Bella, these are about to expire," he said waving the plane tickets like a fan and giving me a knowing smile. "We should go visit your mother. She would be very happy to see you right about now."

"Charlie won't want me to leave so soon," I argued.

"He would understand your need to see your mother," Edward said knowing he was right. "Besides the tickets don't have much time left on them. We should go this weekend."

"I guess we can ask when he gets home," I sighed. "I think there will be yelling though."

"I doubt it love," Edward said with a laugh. Then he started to kiss lightly along my neck and I became very distracted.

We didn't do much. Partly because Edward was afraid to do something that would trigger a memory for me, but mostly because there was a crunch of gravel in the driveway announcing that Charlie was home. We both hurried downstairs so it would look more proper, and so I could get to work on the fried chicken that I wanted to serve for dinner. Charlie and Edward sat talking about the latest baseball game while I cooked. I was fairly sure that Edward was picking up the facts about the game from Charlie's mind since he hadn't watched any sporting events lately.

We ate dinner while having comfortable conversation about school and the test I had to take that day. Edward gave me to knowing looks throughout the meal seeming to pick up on the fact that I was afraid to ask Charlie if I could go to Florida this weekend. He didn't bring it up so I thought I was getting my way until dinner ended.

"Charlie, did Bella tell you that my parents gave her plane tickets for her birthday?" Edward said as we were working on cleaning up the kitchen.

"Bella?" Charlie asked in confusion.

"Sorry Dad, I kind of forgot." I hedged.

"How do you forget that someone gave you plane tickets," Charlie chided.

"I don't know," I squirmed.

"They expire soon, and I know Esme would be upset if Bella didn't use them, even though she wouldn't say it," Edward explained. "I thought it might be a good idea to use them to go see Rene this weekend."

"Rene would love to see you Bella," Charlie agreed quickly, but then a light went off. "Wait Edward, you speak as if there is more than one ticket."

"There are two," Edward said simply. "One for Bella and one for me."

"You are not travelling alone with a boy!" Charlie yelled at me.

"I wouldn't be alone Charlie," I yelled back. "Or are you saying that Rene isn't a fit adult?"

"No that's not it at all," Charlie backtracked.

"I didn't think so," I said in my firmest voice. "You should probably hope I don't mention this."

Charlie gave me a strong but angry look that I knew meant he was worried I would say something but also felt frustrated by my behavior. I let it drop and turned back to the sink to finish up the dishes with Edward. I was sure Edward could still hear the rapid beat of my heart, and I hoped that he knew it was because of my anger at him. Charlie left the room, and I turned to glare at Edward.

"What the hell was that about," I whisper yelled at him.

"I knew you weren't going to have the courage to ask him," Edward said quietly, still drying the dishes. "You want to go don't you?"

"Yes," I sighed. "But I didn't want to fight with Charlie."

"Well you didn't need to fight with him," Edward said with a chuckle.

"I can't help it," I groaned. "It's a teenage instinct or something."

"Why are you so worried about us going?" I questioned Edward while I put the dried dishes into the sink.

"You've been talking about Rene in your sleep." Edward said with his back turned to me as he washed down the table. "You miss her."

"I do miss her," I sighed. "So when do we leave?"

"Friday morning?" Edward questioned.

"Sounds great," I laughed. "Charlie is going to just love me missing more school."


	15. Chapter 15

Sunday night we pulled into my driveway after driving back from the airport, and I felt like my legs were made of lead. The trip to see Rene had been a whirlwind, but it had been great at the same time. I hadn't realized how much I had resigned myself to never seeing my mother while I had been in Mason's basement, until I saw her in front of me. I immediately began to cry and didn't want to stop hugging her. Because of Phil having a broken leg she was not able to come up and see me at the hospital when I got back, and she wouldn't be able to attend my graduation. So this would be the only time I would see her until the wedding, which still didn't have a date set.

Once we had settled and put our things a way Rene immediately wanted to go out and show of the sights of Florida. Edward was able to go out with us the first night since we had arrived around nightfall, but for the other days of the weekend he had to work on a pretend term paper as a reason to stay in the house when Rene and I went to the beach and to the mall. My mother paraded me around town trying to find anything that would convince me to come to college down there, but I continually told her I was already decided on Alaska. I had sent out an application to it while still in the hospital on Edward's request. He had me sign many different applications while he did the rest of the work on them. I would have felt guilty about that if I had any intention of actually attending any of the colleges on the list of those applied to.

On Sunday afternoon Rene and I walked on the beach near her house for one last talk. We wandered through the difficult subject of my time away, as we so edgily referred to it now, before finally falling on the subject of Edward. Rene joked with me about how if I hadn't called to speak with her about the engagement she would have figured it out while I was here. Apparently Edward and I orbited each other and we were constantly aware of where the other person was. Even though she was the anti-fan of young marriage, she was happy for us, and certain that we would succeed.

We left just after that talk to catch our flight. Edward had pulled the car into Rene's spot in the carport while we were away so he could load the luggage when it was time to go without being caught in the sunlight. I giggled every time I saw the rental car. Of course Edward had rented a silver Volvo. We quickly loaded our luggage and said our goodbyes to Rene and fill and then we jumped into the car and headed out.

The flight back had been uneventful, with nothing really happening other than inconsequential banter between Edward and I, and time racing forward yet standing still as we flew back through the time zones to return to Washington. By the time we touched down in Port Angeles I was feeling the weekend, and I followed Edward blindly out to the paid parking lot to pick up the real Volvo. Edward put me in the car instead of letting me help load the luggage, and I fell into a light sleep while he put the suitases into the trunk.

I awoke when the car came to a stop in my driveway, and groggily followed Edward out of the car. I could see Charlie watching us through the living room window, but I was too tired to pay attention to him. I leaned into Edward followed him into the house.

"Bella," Charlie called cheerily as he came into the hallway by the front door. "How was the trip?"

"Good," I said with a tired smile. "It was great to see Mom again."

"Did you enjoy yourself?" Charlie said as he turned to Edward.

"I did, Florida is quite beautiful," Edward said as he quickly stifled his surprise at how inclusive my father was being.

"Dad, Edward is going to help me get my things upstairs, and then I am going to go to bed," I said with a sigh. "I'm jet lagged or something."

"Okay Bells," Charlie chuckled and turned to head back into the living room.

Edward hurried me upstairs, and set my suitcase on the floor in front of my closet. He grabbed a fresh pair of pajamas from my drawer and tossed them on my bed, and then he grabbed my shower things from my suitcase and handed them to me.

"I'll be back in 15 minutes or less," He whispered into my hair as he gave me a quick hug. "Have a nice shower love."

Then he turned on his heel and left. I could hear him saying a goodbye to Charlie as I headed down to the bathroom to grab a quick shower. I was glad to finally be rid of the plastic wrap on my back. Carlisle had pulled my stitches out the night before we flew out, so I could now shower with no assistance in covering the wound. I showered quickly, leaning into the wall when I felt particularly tired. When I got out of the shower I quickly, but awkwardly smeared scar cream on my back. Carlisle has said that the scar would probably never fade on my human skin, but I couldn't help but try. I quickly threw on the shorts and tank top that Edward had grabbed for me, and I couldn't help but chuckle a bit at him because the outfit didn't cover much. We hadn't pushed our physical relationship since our reunion, which I had been okay with up to this point. Though I was beginning to really question it. I felt certain as of late that I could be with him without thinking about Joe.

I hurried down to my bedroom and breathed a happy sigh when I saw Edward sitting patiently in my rocking chair looking out my window. He always looked so beautiful with the moonlight glistening off his skin. When I closed the door quietly he turned to face me with my favorite crooked smile on his face.

"The flush of your skin from the warm water looks absolutely delectable with those pink shorts." He said in a somewhat husky voice. "Shall we go to bed my love?"

"Yes please," I giggled, trying not to swoon over his previous compliment. I climbed swiftly under the covers and let Edward bundle the blankets around me before he lay down as my side.

"What were you giggling about in the bathroom?" he whispered into my hair as he lay down.

"The pajamas you picked out for me," I laughed quietly as I rolled over to bury my face in his chest.

"I rather like them," Edward said with a chuckle, as he began to gently rub my lower back. He made a point never to rub the top anymore. He had done it once and all my muscles had locked down in a fearful response that I couldn't really explain to him. He now aimed to avoid that reaction. This made me sad.

"I like them too," I said, feeling a yearning for him that I had been trying to ignore lately, knowing he would reject me. Then I had an idea, so I rolled onto my stomach, which pulled his arm over my back. "Edward?"

"Yes love?" he said with obvious surprise in his voice.

"Will you give me a back massage?" I said coyly.

"Okay," Edward said with a question in his voice. "Are you sure you want me to touch your back?"

"Yes," I whispered. I knew that part of my scar would be showing due to the size of the shirt, but I was desperate for his touch. "I just want you to touch me."

"That's fine with me," Edward chuckled as he began massaging my back. "So did you enjoy the trip this weekend Bella?"

"Mmmm," I groaned my approval as he kneaded my lower back before sighing. "Sunshine."

"You look like you got a bit of a tan just in those two days," Edward agreed while slowly kneading further up my back. "I like the color on you."

"Mmmm?" was the only way I could think to phrase my question as he turned my brain to mush with his amazing fingers.

"I have always loved the red in your cheeks when you blush," Edward explained. "But this is the first time I have seen you with a tan. Its kind of exotic."

I chuckled at him, and sighed into the pillow. He slowly worked his way further up my back. His hands were just below my scar, and I was sure he could feel my muscles tensing up just a bit. I focused my mind on relaxing further into my bed, and I heard the slight intake of Edward's breath as he moved his hands directly over my scar and my back muscles stayed completely relaxed. I could tell he was surprised, but I didn't let myself think about it just so my mind could not wander anywhere else. As he continued upward, and he slowly massaged my neck I felt myself begin to fall asleep. Edward seemed to sense this, and he began humming my lullaby. Apparently he wanted me to fall asleep, so I conceded, and within a few minutes I had crept out of the world of the living and slipped gently into the warm waters of my dream world. My dream world looked an awful lot like Florida this evening.

When I woke up the next morning I was still face down in the pillows. This had to have been the first night since I had been released from the hospital that I hadn't tossed and turned during the night. Edward was sitting over in the rocking chair again but he was watching me with a smile.

"Peaceful dream?" he said softly.

"Yeah actually," I giggled softly. "I dreamt of the Floridian beach, it was a nice contrast to see sunlight and be surrounded by warm water in my dream world."

"It was nice to see you sleep through the night and not look like you were in some sort of cage fighting match," Edward chuckled, but I could hear the sincerity in his voice.

Edward ran home to get the Volvo while I took a human moment to get ready for the day. I quickly threw on this light pink dress that Alice had picked up for me. She went on some ridiculous shopping trip the day before I was released from the hospital to buy clothes for me to wear during the time that I gained weight. Since obviously none of my old clothes were going to fit for awhile. By the time I pulled my hair into a ponytail and ran down stairs with my backpack Edward was already parked in the driveway. I threw the door open and ran out to meet him in my excitement, he hopped quickly out of the car with a disapproving look on his face.

"Bella I realize it's technically spring, but its only 35 degrees out today. Why aren't you wearing a jacket?" He said as he hustled me back into the house and grabbed my jacket off the hook.

"I forgot." I said quietly, trying to stifle a laugh at how he sounded like a parent right now.

"Did you enjoy your breakfast?" he said with a suspicious voice which told me he already knew that I didn't eat yet, I seemed to have picked up a habit of skipping meals that did not please Edward in the slightest. It wasn't really intentional; I just had to work on gaining my old appetite again.

"I didn't have breakfast," I said quietly.

"I figured," Edward said softly, and I sighed in relief that he didn't sound angry. "I've got a breakfast burrito for you in the car."

"Thanks," I sighed and followed him out to the car after I zipped up my jacket.

Edward carried my backpack out to the car and opened my door for me. I climbed in while he tossed my bag in the back and ran around to the drivers seat. I enjoyed my breakfast burrito while Edward drove. He was chatting about Alice going on about how I would be wearing that dress today and Edward would love it, and so on and so forth. All I had to do was nod and smile. Of course Alice would know I was going to wear this dress. All of a sudden Edward stopped talking though, and that caught my attention. I looked over at him, and he seemed upset, but when I looked around outside the car I couldn't see any reason for it. He must have been hearing some thought he didn't like, we were within a block of the school so he could be hearing just about anyone.

"Bella, if I asked you to stay in the car until I came back for you would you listen?" Edward asked me with his eyes still on the road as he pulled into the parking lot.

"Why?" I said looking around to see what Edward would see as a threat.

"There's someone here to speak with me, and I don't imagine it will be a pleasant conversation." He explained softly. "Will you stay in the car?"

"No," I said quietly, I just saw whom Edward was hearing, and I couldn't just sit in the car while he spoke to Sam Uley without at least telling the man thank you. "I won't."

"I didn't think so," Edward sighed as he parked the car next to Sam's bike on the sidewalk.

We both got out of the car and walked over to Sam. I hadn't noticed that night how big Sam was, I felt like a small child; completely dwarfed as I stood near him leaning into Edward's side confused by the fear that was flowing through my veins being in his presence.

"Hello Sam," Edward said, trying to hide the anger seething under his surface. "Might I kindly remind you that you are out of the Quileute territory?"

"I am aware," Sam said in a firm voice. "I am here to remind your family of a few things after the incident this weekend."

"It was more of an accident than an incident," Edward said in a terse voice. "Hardly anything to mention if your old girlfriend hadn't thrown a tantrum."

"Don't put this on Leah," Sam said in firm voice that almost conceal his anger, almost. "This wouldn't have happened if Emmet hadn't crossed the line."

"It was an accident," Edward said firmly, his shoulders locking down as he tried to keep his cool. "And like I said it wouldn't have been an issue if certain people with volatile tempers could control them."

"Regardless, I am hear to remind you about the finer points of the treaty," Sam said forcing a fake calmness into his voice. "Obviously the borders should remain intact, and a fight will ensue if anyone in your family bites a human. Bites, not kills."

"We are very aware of the finer points of the treaty," Edward said firmly, as he turned me towards the school and started walking away before calling over his shoulder. "Now get off of our land immediately."

I looked up at Edward with anger and fear in my eyes. Fear that there had been a fight this weekend while we had been away. Fear that Edward turning me would mean that the treaty was broken. Anger that Edward was still not telling me what was going on. That he was treating me like a baby instead of an adult. I gave him a look that said we would discuss this later, and then I followed him into the classroom and sat down next to him at my desk. As soon as the teacher began with his lecture, I pulled out a piece of paper and began writing.

** What happened this weekend? And you will tell me everything.**

I quickly slid the paper over to Edward. Rather than taking the paper he pulled out a piece of his own. For a second I was confused, and then I realized that he was hoping to avoid being called out for passing notes.

_**Alice had a vision that Victoria **_(my heart stopped dead, and then took off at a sprint, Edward noticed) _**would be in town this weekend. I took you to Florida so you wouldn't be around for her to get to, while my family hunted for her. She seems to have a talent for escapes, and sensed the treaty line easily. She ran straight down the line, putting us in very close proximity with the wolves who were hunting as well. Emmet lunged for her and missed. He ended up crossing the line, and came very close to running into one of the wolves named Paul. Leah, the only female wolf, reacted strongly to this and lunged for Emmet. Rosalie got defensive and went to lunge for Leah. Carlisle and Jasper were able to calm the situation before it got any worse, but it was very nearly a fight.**_

I took his words in, and felt first the panic, then the anger, and finally the calmness flowing through me. I looked over at Edward, and I couldn't be truly angry with him. He only wanted to protect me, but I still let him sweat it out while he waited for my answer.

**You will be open and honest next time.**

He nodded his consent and then we both tuned back into class. With only a week left of school I probably should have been paying attention. But finals were starting tomorrow, and I just wanted to finish them so I could graduate and be done with this. It always felt like the student body was staring at me, and I was ready to stop seeing them on a daily basis. I felt a bit annoyed when I thought about graduation. I had been top of my class when Joe had grabbed me, and now I was just lucky to be able to graduate with my class. Angela was going to be the valedictorian now, and I was happy for her, but I could see the pity for me in her eyes when she looked at me during talks about graduation. The class would be working after school for the rest of the week to get the gym ready for graduation Saturday afternoon.


	16. Chapter 16

After helping our classmates paint a large banner with our graduation year Edward, Alice, and I got into the Volvo home. As soon we pulled out of the parking lot Alice slipped into a vision, and Edward's hands tightened on the steering wheel. I was stuck in the land of confusion for a few seconds while I waited to figure out what was going on. Just before we pulled into my driveway she focused back in on the car.

"Bella why didn't you tell me that some of the clothes I bought you were missing as well?" Alice whined.

"Alice do you really think that's the issue right now?" Edward growled. "Its bad enough that the smell of some unknown vampire was in her house, but they apparently took some of her things."

"There was a vampire in my house?" I shrieked.

"Yes, I smelled it when I took your suitcase up to your room yesterday," Edward rushed. "I didn't want to worry you. Keep in mind this was before your order about telling you everything earlier today."

"How would it seem okay to not tell me about _that_ though Edward?" I growled at him.

"They weren't anywhere near the house during the 15 minutes that I left," Edward soothed with his hands up in submission. "And I immediately went to speak with my family where I found out that the vampire that left that scent had been gone for at least 24 hours."

"Oooh, Edward, if we hadn't just had that conversation this morning I swear I would hit you!" I yelled at him as I threw my door open and got out of the car. "You really need to learn that I am not a baby. Do you understand that?"

"Yes love, I do," Edward said in all sincerity, melting my anger away instantly.

"So what all am I missing Alice?" I laughed as I turned on my heel and climbed the stairs.

"Well I want to check and see that I didn't miss anything, but it seems the majority of them are your old clothes anyway." Alice explained hot on my heels. "But the outfit you wore the first day out of the hospital is gone as well as the outfit on your first day back to school."

I had to laugh then because she honestly seemed sad about it. I didn't bother to try and remind her that they were just clothes and they didn't really matter much. My biggest concern when it came to my clothes was finding something remotely decent to wear to graduation on Saturday, other than that I didn't really care.

--

-

--

The week went pretty quickly after that little incident. I came straight home everyday after school. Mrs. Newton had been willing to give me my job back, at least a with a few less hours, but I had opted not to take it since I would end up quitting at the end of school because of the wedding and everything. I would have loved to spend my evenings in the meadow with Edward or something equally relaxing, but instead I spent them with my head buried in my schoolbooks. Tuesday had seen final exams in Calculus and Geography, so Monday night meant studying for them. Wednesday morning I had an English test, so Tuesday night I took time to review a few of the selections they had read during my absence to be ready for it. Thursday I had to prove my efficiency in Chemistry and Spanish. I spent the most time studying for those two, and probably would have failed the finals if Edward hadn't been tutoring me. Friday I had an exam for my AP literature class, but I didn't even study for that one it was so far up my alley.

Friday night rolled around and I was free from any studying so Edward and I headed up to the gym to help the class with the last little bits of decorations in the gym. We had a big net of gold, blue, and white balloons over the top of the stage we would graduate. It was set up so the principle could pull a nearly invisible string when he announced our graduating class, and they would fall on us. It was Lauren's idea, but I actually liked it even though I would never tell her that.

Before I knew it Saturday was rolling around. The ceremony was at 3:00 so I needed to be up to the school by 2:00, I put myself into a rush by sleeping until 12:00. I grumbled at Edward as I rolled out of bed; why had he let me sleep for so long?

"Edward, why didn't you wake me?" I sighed as I threw my legs over the side of the bed and rubbed the sleep out of my eyes.

"After the nightmare you woke up to in the middle of the night you were sleeping so peacefully I didn't want to bother you," Edward whispered as wrapped his arms around me from behind.

I remembered the nightmare easily. It had been one of the more disturbing ones. At first I hadn't been able to see anything, so I immediately knew that I was in that dreadful basement again. Then there was a flare of sickeningly bright light and I could see everything. I could see all the claw marks on the wall of my little closet, and the bones of all the other dead girls in the corner. I knew somewhere in the back of my mind that the bones at least had never been there, but it didn't take away the fear. I could feel my heart ready to beat out of my chest when the door to my little prison flew open and a much bigger and stronger Joe came through the door. He would hold me to the floor and go about his business like he had in real life, only this time he went all the way. I knew I would die because he did that. It was of course out of order from how he would have done it in real life, but my dream world didn't seem to care about getting all of the details right. I had come screaming into consciousness when Joe had pulled out the night from my last day there and plunged it straight through my chest. I flew upright in bed clasping my chest and checking for blood on the sheets. It had taken more than an hour for Edward to calm me down enough for me to go back to sleep.

"Fair enough," I forced a small chuckle as I stood and grabbed my shower things from off of my desk. "Well I am going to take a human moment, though I hope I can make it a quick one since I am running late now."

"I am going to run home so I can get ready and spend a little time with Esme, she seems to have been missing me this week," Edward laughed, pulling me in for a chaste kiss before heading towards the window. "I'll see you are the gym?"

"Okay," I agreed softly, and turned to head into the bathroom.

I hurried through my shower, opting not to wet my hair so I wouldn't have to deal with blow-drying it. It wasn't terribly dirty anyway. I quickly washed up, and brushed my teeth before heading back to my room wrapped up in my big fluffy bathrobe. I tossed my shower things on the floor next to my desk and started pawing through my closet for something to wear that wouldn't look absolutely repulsive with the gold graduation cap and gown someone had chosen for all of us to wear. It seemed like all I could find were things in different shades of pink, and of which seemed to clash. I was just throwing a tantrum about stupid vampires that steal my things when Alice slid through my window with a scandalized look on her face.

"What did I ever do to you?" Alice said in false indignation.

"Not you Alice," I laughed as I turned to face her looking ridiculous in my robe with my hair piled on top of my head. "I just can't find anything to wear."

"I had a feeling," Alice chuckled before starting to rummage through my closet. "Here wear this, Edward will love it."

"I could have done this alone if it weren't for that stupid vampire," I grumbled as I took the royal blue sundress and white shrug over to the bed.

"It does seem to be coming from all sides lately doesn't it?" Alice said sadly leaning against the wall next to the window. As she said that something occurred to me.

"What if it isn't from all sides," I whispered, turning to stare at Alice in shock. "What if its all from the same side? What if the other vampire was here _with_ Victoria. The missing stuff would be for my scent wouldn't it? And wasn't Jasper saying the other day that the missing people from Seattle sounded like a newborn army?"

Alice stood there and stared at me for a bit, and I couldn't decide if she thought I was crazy or not. Then her eyes became unfocused and I realized she was searching the future for something. I waited patiently to find out what she would say.


	17. Chapter 17

"You're right…" Alice whispered making eye contact. "Edward will be here in two minutes. Don't tell him anything; we need to wait until after the ceremony. He is not going to react well."

"Okay," I said quietly, not knowing how to handle the weight that was settling on my chest realizing that my assumption had been right. I jumped, as there was a loud knock on my door. I turned to look at the door, and when I looked back Alice was gone.

"Hurry up Bella, we're going to be late!" Charlie called gruffly through the door.

"Be down in a minute dad," I called back as I rushed back over to the bed to get ready.

I could hear Charlie's heavy footsteps clumping back down the stairs as I threw on the dress that Alice had picked out for me. As I was buttoning the shrug I heard a knock at the door that I assumed was Edward. I received confirmation as I was sliding my shoes on when I heard Edward speaking to Charlie. I didn't have time to do my hair so I quickly brushed it and swept it into a low side ponytail letting it fall over my left shoulder. I hadn't wanted to do something nice with makeup since it was a special occasion, but I had run out of time, not to mention not having Alice to help me. I quickly put on some lip-gloss and pinched my cheeks before grabbing my cap and gown and heading down stairs.

We got into Charlie's cop car, with Edward in the back, and zipped off towards the school. I tried not to give Charlie a dirty look for how pleased he looked to see Edward behind the fence like divider behind our seats. Within a few minutes we were at the school, and I was relieved to see some of my classmates still milling around in the parking lot. We obviously weren't that late.

Edward and I hurried to join our classmates in the foyer of the gym, were graduation would be held. We quickly threw our robes on, and I stifled my gasp at how it could possibly look good on Edward. The rest of us looked repulsive, but of course he looked like an angel. We had to separate then due to the alphabetical distance between our last names. I found myself standing next to Jessica. She looked like she was about to start talking to me, but luckily Pomp and Circumstance began to play and she didn't get the chance.

I didn't pay much attention during the ceremony. My head was full of thoughts of Victoria and her plot. I did take notice that Alice seemed to be skipping graduation all together just to keep Edward from seeing into her head. His reaction from her vision must have been pretty bad if she was this afraid for him to see it in public. I forced myself to focus when Angela took the podium to deliver the valedictorian's address. She had told me her speech would make me happy

"Hello everyone," Angela said clearing her throat. " I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what I should get up here and say to all of you tonight. What words to use to represent our graduating class in the right way. I couldn't decide how to inspire my peers to greatness, and then I realized that I didn't need to do that at all. I could stand up here and talk to all of you about how this is a beginning, and we have our entire futures ahead of us, but that isn't why we are here tonight. Tonight is about remembering and celebrating the past 12 years of education that brought us here tonight. So instead I would like to share a story of success for each of those twelve years for different members of our class. For example, who couldn't be proud for little Ashley Shoemake back in first grade when she was the first student in the class to read an entire book without any help? Or what about in second grade when Erik Yorkie represented Forks in the state spelling bee and got third place? Does anyone remember in third grade when Amanda Stoll starred in the Christmas pageant's dance of the sugar plum fairies? Or how about fourth grade, when Mike Newton became the first member of our class that could shoot free throws on the big kid basketball hoop? I remember how successful I felt in fifth grade when I won the science fair with my pickle light bulb. Then there was Tyler, who always struggled with math, who got the highest grade in the class on our algebra test. We even had cupcakes the next day it was that big of a deal. No one can forget seventh grade, when Lauren competed in a beauty pageant in Port Angeles and took first runner up, I think her sash is still in one of the trophy cases in the hall. How about 8th grade when Sarah Mustoe sold her sheep for the highest price in the state, bringing quite a bit of prestige to our schools 4-H club. Or how about freshman year when Jessica Stanley attended homecoming with a senior and actually won homecoming queen? Of course no one could forget the Cullens moving here our sophomore year, and no one has been more academically successful than them. Or last year when Shane Olson over came that ACL injury and lead our basketball team on to state? Then this year we have seen what I consider the strongest effort and biggest success of anyone in our class. No one will soon forget the disappearance of Bella Swan, but more importantly it will be a long time before any of us forget how she managed to come back from likely not being able to graduate with her class to being two ranks away of reclaiming her title as valedictorian. In fact, in closing of my speech, I have been given the very great honor of bestowing Bella with an honorary valedictorian metal for her amazing achievement in the past two weeks. Please join me in giving her a round of applause."

I sat in my seat frozen after Angela had finished talking. It took Jessica nudging me out of my seat for me to realize I was supposed to go get the metal from her. As she put it over my head I saw Charlie out of the corner of my eye snapping pictures. I wondered vaguely if he had known about this. I could feel tears trying to leak out as I hugged Angela, I could not have been happier.

The ceremony ended, and hugs were to be had by all, but before I knew it we were back in Charlie's cruiser and heading to the Cullen home. I noticed Edward watching me like he knew something was wrong, but he knew better than to ask me about it in front of Charlie. Charlie mumbled something about not letting the party get to rowdy before he drove away.

"So do you know why Alice skipped graduation?" Edward said as we walked towards the house.

"I imagine she couldn't think of something to keep you out of her head," I suggested as we mounted the stairs.

"You know she's keeping something from me?" Edward gasped stopping just short of the front door.

"Of course," I sighed turning to fully face him. "I'm the one who figured out the little tidbit she's hiding from you."

"What did you figure out?" Edward said looking confused.

"That everything is related. The strange vampire, the missing clothes, even the newborn army being formed in Seattle. It all leads back to Victoria," I rushed out watching his face closely.

First his face went blank, and then I saw the truth register in his eyes. He knew I was right. Then he looked like he might kill. I was almost afraid, but he pulled me to him and let me bury my face in his chest.

"I won't let her touch you," Edward swore.

"Edward, Bella, get in here," Alice called from the now open door. "Guests will be arriving soon, and you need to look like proper hosts by then."

And so we did as she said. We hurried in and helped put the last of the snacks on the table, and vetoed all the terribly out of time period CDs Emmett tried to put into the stereo. Before I knew it the first knock on the door came, and our classmates began to trickle in.

I tried to mimic Alice, floating through the crowd greeting people and chatting with them while holding Edward's hand. Twice I found myself caught talking to Jessica, and just before I could start to wonder if she was following me I felt Edward pull up short. I followed his line of sight and saw Alice in the kitchen. She seemed to be coming out of a particularly disturbing vision. We excused ourselves from Jessica's side and rushed to the kitchen.

"What did you see?" I rushed as soon as we were in the kitchen.

"Not here," she whispered putting her finger to her lip as she led us through the garage door.

"What did you see?" I repeated after Jasper closed the door hiding the Cullen clan from the rest of the party.

"The new born army is coming." Alice said with a pained expression. "They will show up next Saturday."

"How many?" Emmett said, and excited glimmer in his eye as he rubbed his hands together.

"The numbers keep changing," Alice said, looking off to somewhere in the future. "Its just over 20 though."

"20?" Carlisle gasped. "Why are so many coming?"

"For Bella," Alice groaned. "Victoria is hoping to overwhelm us with numbers and have them kill Bella, and any of us they can manage to."

"I know how to kill newborns," Jasper growled. "But they outnumber us by too much. We are going to need reinforcements."

"Who will join us?" Esme said sadly from behind Carlisle. "Who will want to risk being present should the Volturi intervene?"

"She has a point," Edward said from beside me. "Only someone with a personal investment would help."

"The wolves," Rosalie said. The revulsion was clear on her face, but so was the resignation that they were the only real option.

"I will go make the call." Carlisle said as he checked his watch. "Perhaps its time to send the party goers home."

Carlisle hurried up to his office while we took care of ending the party. We turned off the music and said goodbye to each person as they left. When they were gone we set to work cleaning everything up. Thanks to vampire speed we were done by the time Carlisle came back downstairs at 11:00. It appeared there was going to be a meeting with the wolves in the baseball clearing in a couple of hours.


	18. Chapter 18

Both that night and the following night the Cullens and the wolves were meeting in the clearing. Edward has asked me to stay home for safety and I had not fought with him over it. I wanted to know what was going on, and wanted to find some way to erase my guilt for anyone having to be involved with my troubles. But I had learned to have at least bit of concern for my well being over the past couple of months. So when Edward told me it was too dangerous for me to be around volatile young wolves I listened to him. I would go home to sleep in my bed at Charlie's and Edward would join me in the early morning hours when they had finished what they were doing out in the meadow.

Edward did not seem afraid. In the mornings he would assure me how easy all of this would be. Of course he would have to wait to do that until he had calmed me from my latest nightmare. The nightmares were getting far worse, and I knew why. Monday morning, later today in fact, I was called to testify in Joe Mason's trial. I knew that I would have to talk about what had happened to me in front of an open courtroom, and that terrified me. I had almost asked Jasper to skip out on training last night and sit in my room while I slept to help me out, but I knew he was doing the majority of the training and would have to be present.

Last night's nightmare had clung to me in the morning. Edward was trying to sooth me by rubbing my back and speaking soft soothing words, but I couldn't seem to let go of my dream, and ended up bolting to the bathroom to retch. I had dreamt about being in court last night. The defense attorney was calling me a liar and a slut. He said Joe Mason hadn't kidnapped me, tortured me, or called me any of those bad names, but that if he had he would have been right too because they were all true. The whole room had started chanting slut at me while Joe rocked back and forth in his chair laughing at me. I thought maybe I couldn't kick the dream because I knew that the defense attorney was going to attack me on the stand.

"Edward I don't want you to come to court today…" I said with my back to him as I put on the little black shoes Alice had picked out to match the black pants suit she had purchased.

"Why not," he said in a forced calm voice from the rocking chair, but I could hear the underlying concern.

"I don't want you to hear all of that stuff again." I explained turning to face him. "Heck I don't even want to hear it again."

"Are you sure about this?" he asked, walking over to pull me into his arms. I knew he didn't want to do this, but he seemed willing to give me what I wanted on this difficult day. "Do you want anyone there? Maybe Jasper?"

"I can't ask Jasper to do that," I sighed leaning into his chest. "There will be far to many emotions in that room today."

"Bella, we need to get going," Charlie called from down stairs.

"Time to go," Edward whispered into my hair giving me one final squeeze. "I'll be right here when you get back."

"I love you," I said leaning up to steal a kiss before turning and heading downstairs to join Charlie. I heard Edward answer with his love but I couldn't go back to him or I would loose my nerve.

Charlie and I drive nearly silently to Port Angeles where the trial would be held. Joe was being held at the Clallam Bay Corrections facility, and it saved the transport team time and distance if the trial was held in Port Angeles instead of Forks. They were just over an hour for Port Angeles. Hopefully, when they convicted him, he would be kept much further away.

When we got to the courthouse the prosecutor was waiting for us in the lobby. She gave me brief instruction about where to sit, and what to do when I was called to the stand. She told me she would request a recess when I was allowed to leave the stand so I would have the chance to leave without having the see Joe Mason take the stand in his own defense. She told me it wouldn't be helpful to me to hear closing arguments either, since some of the photos taken of me at the hospital would be showed again. The verdict probably wouldn't come out until tomorrow, so she recommended a few different hotels to us, but Charlie kindly told her he didn't mind the drive if it meant I was able to sleep in the safety of my own bed.

We went into the courtroom then and took our seats. To my dismay I saw many people from the town of Forks present, including a good portion of my classmates. I would have liked to get this over with without having them present, but it didn't appear I would be getting my way. I hadn't been sitting there for very long when the judge called the court to order, and I was called to the stand.

The questioning from the prosecutor was simple and straightforward. I basically just had to tell my story with a question from her now and then. She had me tell the court about how I had been abducted, what had happened in that little basement, and all the things that Joe had said to me about the other girls. She had brought me tissues when I broke down, and helped me get through. It was important that I get through all of it because I was the only girl who would get the chance to tell my story.

"Could you explain to the court how it is you came to be on that road the day my client was supposed to have abducted you?" Joe's attorney asked, looking more like an attack dog than a human being.

"I had been out for a drive because I was having a bad day," I restated. "I had gotten out of the car to look at the bikes that the Mark's family was selling."

'And why would an apparently responsible girl like yourself be looking at motorbikes?" he pushed.

"They intrigued me," I said, not willing to declare the insanity of that moment to the courtroom. "I doubt I would have purchased them."

"And why did you get into my client's car?" he asked, and I was scandalized.

"Objection!" the prosecutor yelled before I could give any sort of answer. "Testimony has been given to this court already that this woman did not get into the car willingly."

"Sustained," the judge said before looking at the defense attorney. "Remember yourself counsel."

"Withdrawn," the defense attorney said. "Why did you approach the car of my client?"

"Objection," the prosecutor said again. "The witness has already told the court why she approached the car."

"Is there a point to this counsel?" the judge asked.

"I'm trying to see if the witness has been dishonest about anything." The defense attorney said. "It is only her word against my client's as to what happened while she was there."

"Not to mention the diary already entered into evidence denoting all his crimes," the prosecutor yelled.

The gavel being slammed onto the desk in front of the judge interrupted all of the arguing. I mentally shut myself off as the defense attorney continued with his questioning. He accused me of being everything that Joe had called me, and didn't stop until I had begun to cry and the judge's gavel began pounding again. The defense finally rested their case so I was able to leave. Charlie gave me a hug in the lobby, but there was nothing really to say that could make that experience better, so neither of us said anything, we just got back into the car.

I thought a lot about everything that brought me to that trial on the ride home. It occurred to me that I might never have been through this experience if Edward had been here. Not only would I not have been out on some road looking at motorcycles, but also Edward would likely have been with me that day, so even if I had been out their Joe would not have been able to grab me. When I thought more about it I realized I only felt safe and whole when I was with him. And more so, I also only felt sure of Edward's safety when he was in my presence. Not because I could protect him, but because I could see with my own eyes that he was free of harm.

Charlie took me directly to the Cullen's house, seeming to know without asking that I needed Edward after the day I had been through. Alice must have known that two because both she and Edward were sitting on the front porch waiting for me. The car hadn't even come to a complete stop when I threw the door open and started getting out to run to Edward. I threw myself into Edward's arms and started crying, barely registering the sound of Charlie leaving behind me. Edward picked me up and carried me up to his room, and we laid on his bed with him rubbing my arm soothingly as I cried into his chest.

"Edward…' I whispered after my tears had finally stopped. "Were you being honest when you said that the fight would be so easy that someone could sit out?"

"Yes I was," Edward said with a light in his voice that told me he was trying to convince me that was true, rather than thinking about where I might be going with this.

"Would you sit out then?" I whispered burying my face in his chest again. "Would you stay with me instead?"

"Bella, are you asking me to make my family do this alone?" Edward said in a voice I could not read.

"Didn't you just say that it wouldn't matter if someone sat out?" I whispered.

"I did say that," Edward said sounding defeated. "I suppose I had been thinking of Esme or someone else."

"Edward, I don't think I could stand for you to leave me to go fight," I said, feeling guilt literally weigh me down. "I can't loose you again."

"You wouldn't loose me love," he whispered, trying to lift my head up to look into my eyes, but I refused. "Please look at me."

"No," I cried. "I feel like a horrible person, don't look at me."

"Never feel bad about asking for what you need Bella," Edward said with some kind of fire in his voice. I finally opened my eyes to look at him, and saw that some fire burning in his eyes. "If that's what you need, than that is what I will give you."

"Thank you," I whispered leaning my head into his chest again.

"I should go tell Jasper about this new change," Edward said, sounding a bit sad.

"I know already," Jasper called from down the hall. "The little pixie told me a little while ago. We'll be fine Edward."

Edward's muscles seemed to relax after he heard that, or perhaps after he heard whatever Alice was thinking about the future. We lay there for a while, talking to one another. We talked about the verdict tomorrow, and I told Edward he could come with me tomorrow. We also talked about what we should tell Charlie we would be doing, so I could stay here at the Cullen house safely while the battle took place in just a few days. We eventually decided on some ridiculous trip to Florida to celebrate graduation, and the verdict assuming it went the right way. After we made the decision I fell into a fitful sleep.


	19. Chapter 19

I must have been more tired than I thought because though it was fretful, and full of nightmares I slept through the night. I dreamt about Joe being found innocent and coming after me. In my dreams he was able to get to me, but I calmed my waking self by reminding myself that he could not get past the Cullens. Edward rubbed my arms soothingly when I woke up, and we chatted idly about things that didn't matter trying not to think about the verdict we would be hearing today.

After a shower and a quick bite to eat we were back on the road to Port Angeles. I rode with Edward, and he had the calming tones of Claire De Lune on repeat, and I was grateful for it. We arrived at the courthouse in record time, and simply sat in the parking lot staring at the building. Edward seemed to understand my reluctance to get out of the car.

"Are you ready now love," Edward said quietly after a few minutes. "The verdict will be delivered in under five minutes."

"Okay," I said quietly, nodding my head.

Almost immediately Edward was opening my door for me, and I took his hand greedily. We walked quickly into the building and slid into the courtroom just before the bailiff could close the doors. We quickly hurried over to join my father by the wooden railing that separated the viewing area from the courtroom floor where the attorneys did their battle.

"Order, Order in the court," the judge said, tapping the gavel to quiet the murmurs in the room. "Madam foreperson, have you reached a unanimous decision?"

"We have," an elderly lady said from the little booth that the jury sat in.

"What say you?" the judge replied.

"In the matter of the common wealth versus Joseph Mason on the 13 counts of murder one, we the jury find the defendant guilty." The woman said, and she had to pause for the excited utterance that came from the viewers of the verdict. "On the count of attempted murder, we the jury find the defended guilty."

I gave Charlie a bone-crushing hug before burying my face in Edward's chest. I didn't want the crowd that was practically cheering to see me cry. I was very relieved to know that Joe would be going away.

"Order in my court!" the judge yelled while pounding the gavel. "Jury, we thank you for your service. Now as to the matter of sentencing, I am ordering that Joseph Mason serve 14 life sentences consecutively without the option of parole."

The courtroom erupted again, it was mostly happy sounds, but I did pick up on a strangled gasp that appeared to have come from Joe's aging mother. I wished I could feel bad for her loosing her son, but he was a monster and deserved what he got. I couldn't help but shake my head when she looked at me. Edward, my father, and I stood to leave. There were reporters outside the doors, but Edward shuffled me through so they could not ask me any questions. WE climbed into the Volvo and followed Charlie back to Forks.

"How are you doing love?" Edward said tentatively after we had been driving in relative silence for a few minutes.

"I'm doing okay," I said, turning to smile at him. "It feels good to know its over. He can't hurt me or anyone else ever again."

"No one will ever lay a hand on you again," Edward vowed, and I patted his hand that rested on my thigh.

"I feel like everything will be able to start new after this weekend," I mused as I rolled down my window to let in the fresh air. "Joe with be gone, soon the vampires will be gone, and then it will be just us. We will get married, and I will join you in eternity, and everything will be perfect."

"I love you," Edward said reverently as he pulled in behind Charlie at my house.

"I love you more," I giggled leaning over to give him a kiss. He kissed me back, and I had to stop myself from deepening it like I so wished I could.

We went inside to join Charlie, who was still hanging up his jacket when we closed the door. Charlie and Edward sat down in the living room, and Charlie flipped on the game while I stood in the doorway watching them. I would actually miss silly moments like these when I could no longer be around any human let alone my father.

"What would you like for lunch dad?" I asked.

"Hmmm," Charlie stalled, his wheels turning over what his stomach wanted. "How about that fish I caught last weekend? Maybe fried up?"

"Coming right up," I giggled turning to head into the kitchen.

I set to work putting together Harry's fish fry recipe while I listened to Edward and Charlie chatting amicably about baseball in the living room. I suspected that Edward would broach the subject of the pretend trip to Orlando, Florida during lunch. I let my mind wander to what fun it would be if we were actually going to Florida. Particularly if it were just Edward and I. I felt my skin flushing hot and forced my mind on to other subjects. My desires for Edward were getting out of control.

Edward sweet-talked Charlie about the trip easily. Before I knew it my things were pack and I was headed to the Cullen's to accommodate an early morning flight. I settled into Edward's room quickly, and I didn't plan to leave much during the few days I would be cooped here. The Cullen's would be in and out due to training with the wolves. Edward was included in that because he had to translate since the wolves never took their human form.

I spent most of Wednesday and Thursday reading. I did work on my wedding vows for a couple of hours each day, and I kept them hidden in my copy of Wuthering Heights. I was certain that Edward's would be far more eloquent than mine, but I was giving my best effort at making them as nice as I possibly could.

Before I knew it Friday night had rolled around and Edward and I were alone in the Cullen household. Everyone would be staying in the clearing to anticipate an early arrival of the newborn horde. My awareness of the new bed that Edward had ordered was heightened by the fact that no one would be here to hear us if we should use it. I decided that tonight was the night I would try to proposition my future husband.

"What _are_ you thinking about," Edward laughed pushing my hair over my shoulder as we lay together in his bed. "Your entire body is flushing."

"I was thinking about you," I said trying to sound alluring as I sat up to hover over him.

I leaned in and kissed him. It was light at first, but then I deepened it. I was surprised that he was letting me, but I could feel the question in his tentative lips. I pressed my body against him. His cold skin made me very aware that I only had volleyball shorts and a tank top covering my over heated flesh.

"Bella," Edward growled into my neck as he broke away from our kiss panting. "What's gotten in to you?"

"I know what I want to get into me," I said, burying my face in his neck out of embarrassment, and then kissing his throat to cover it.

Edward gasped in shock, and stopped moving under me. I felt panic in that moment; sure this would be a swift rejection. He did not however move off of him. He let his hands rest gently on my lower back while he looked into my eyes.

"Bella, it isn't safe," he said quietly.

"Edward I trust you," I very nearly whined. "I know you won't hurt me."

"You can't know that I won't hurt you love," Edward groaned. "It would be so easy to loose control. Not to mention it wouldn't be right."

"What isn't right about two people who love each other making love to one another?" I cried.

"Bella, there are certain things that I was raised to believe mar a soul," he said quietly. "You've already asked to take your soul away based on my beliefs. But if your beliefs are true, then you are now asking me to condemn your soul anyway."

"Edward I don't believe that our making love would be a sin." I sighed.

"Bella, it's the only sin I haven't really committed," Edward whispered kissing my hair gently. "Won't you let me keep that?"

"Wow," I whispered after a long pause. "You're worried about me stealing your purity. I feel like some evil villain now."

"You are anything but evil," Edward sighed. "If anything I am for how badly I want you."

"You don't want me Edward," I groaned. "If you did then you would have me. I've practically thrown myself at your feet."

"But I do want you," Edward said, resolve forming in his voice. "I cannot give you everything you ask for, but I will show you that I want you."

Then he claimed my lips again. He rolled us so he was hovering over me, as he kissed me like he never had before. I felt myself growing breathless as well as over heated. I kissed him back with abandon as he pressed his body against mine without letting me feel his full weight.

He gently pushed my tank top up, sliding his hand across my skin and it felt like he set me ablaze. I arched into him as he gently kneaded my chest. He kissed my neck as he slid his other hand up under my shirt and I could not suppress a moan. The moan seemed to urge him on. He sat me up and gently took my shirt off.

"Beautiful," he murmured reverently as I blushed I front of him. My skin looked almost like his illuminated by only the moonlight and it made the moment feel right.

He laid me back down and began kissing down my neck. When his lips brushed my chest I arched up into him and he groaned against my skin. He pulled my hardened nipple into his mouth and undecipherable words fell from my lips. It felt so amazing that I couldn't describe it.

His hands slid down my rib cage as he continued to plant kisses on my chest. I felt my muscles shudder when his hands reached my shorts. I knew that shiver well, it was the shiver Joe had evoked, but Edward hadn't recognized it as it. I tried to keep my mind only on Edward, not wanting this moment to be ruined. I loved him and I wanted him. I would not let Joe ruin this.

Edward's hands continued that path downward and he gently cupped my heated center. I groaned at the feeling of it, but also registered that it was growing difficult for me to breath. He continued to massage me down there. My body was luxuriating in the pleasure of it, but it didn't stop the panicked breathing that was taking over.

Before I knew what was happening my breathing had turned entirely to hyperventilating and I was crying. Edward finally realized that I wasn't okay and quickly wrapped the comforter around me, while gently sushing and whispering soothing words. I cried so hard I felt myself falling asleep if only to escape it. The gasps and tears died off, and my eyes drifted closed.

"I swear I will kill Mason," I heard Edward mutter to himself. I felt certain that he thought I had already fallen asleep.


	20. Chapter 20

When morning rolled around I awoke in a confused state. Edward was shaking me trying to wake me up, but I was so tired I tried to resist. I must have really worn myself out crying the night before because my eyes felt like they were glued shut and sleep sounded so great.

"Bella, love, you need to wake up right now," Edward whispered anxiously in my ear. The fear in his voice forced my eyes open.

"What is it?" I said groggily trying to figure out why Edward looked afraid.

"I need you to get up, and I need you to listen to what I say and do it without question," Edward said pulling me into an upright position.

"Okay," I whispered feeling panic rise up in me. "What's going on?"

"The newborns were just a trick to separate us from the family." Edward groaned looking horrified. "Victoria is on her way with an older of the newborn vampires. Seth is outside for contact, but he is young an inexperienced in a fight."

"What's going to happen?" I said, hearing my panic leaking into my voice.

"Nothing. Everything is going to be fine," Edward tried to soothe me, but I knew he was just trying to placate me. "I need you to hide in my closet while I take care of this. She is assuming you are with me, but she hasn't detected you yet. Let all the clothes drape around you so it muffles the sound of your heart. Try to keep your breathing even and don't make any noise."

"Ok," I whispered as I stood and started moving towards the closet.

'If she doesn't hear you, she shouldn't come into the house," Edward tried to reassure me. "I will take care of everything else, you just focus on staying hidden, okay?"

"Ok," I whispered again, as Edward helped me climb into his closet.

He pulled his clothes around me and whispered he loved me before closing the door. He must have left, but his footsteps were so quiet I couldn't know for sure. I pulled one of his shirts to my face and breathed in Edward's scent. It soothed me a bit, but I was struggling to shove down the panic that was rising in my throat.

The panic took off at a sprint pulling my heart along with it when I heard crashing sounds in the distance. It sounded like boulders being smashed together, and I would not have recognized it as the sound of vampires fighting if I hadn't heard Edward and Emmett crash into each other what seemed like years and years ago when they played baseball in the clearing during a rainy day. I tried to breath his scent from his shirts deeper, to stop my heart from racing so quickly, but I started to hear screeches along with the crashing sounds. It was torture not knowing who was coming out on top.

I came barreling out of the closet when I heard Edward yell stop. I thought for sure he was loosing, and I couldn't sit in the closet and wait for Victoria to find me and kill me. As I barreled towards Edward's window I realized that I had been wrong. I could see three vampires sparkling in the sun on the ground below Edward's window. One was almost completely in pieces, and I did not recognize him. Between the tree line and me stood Edward in a crouch facing away from me. In the trees stood Victoria, and I realized he had been trying to keep her from running away.

Everything froze for a moment outside as I stumbled towards the window. I was obviously making a considerable amount of noise. Edward didn't turn to face me, but Victoria had eyes only for me. In a flash Edward was upon her, and he was tearing her to shreds. I watched in disbelief as he tore her head off. It seemed so easy for him, as if she were a butter statue, not a vampire made out of granite like flesh.

Edward worked with a sandy haired wolf that I assumed was Seth to collect all the glimmering body parts strewn across the lawn. They through them all into a pile and lit them on fire as I watch on in shock. The smoke that billowed out of the pile was purple and too thick to see through. I could smell it even though the closed window, it smelled like a sickly perfume, or too potent incense. It made my stomach turn, but I couldn't look away from it. I wrapped my arms around my waist and slumped towards the floor still watching the strange bonfire Edward had created.

Before I understood what was happening there were arms around me. I turned to look and saw Edward's face. He looked afraid, but I didn't know what to do to make him feel better. I stared at him blankly willing my mouth to say something, to say anything. But it wouldn't, I stared at him like some sort of mute doll. His lips were moving like her was speaking to me, but I couldn't hear anything other than the sound of my heart beating. The world grew dark around me. I could still see Edward's face in the last moments, but then even that disappeared, and I was surrounded by blackness.

-

--

-

--

-

I woke up to the sight of Edward's ceiling above me. I was wrapped tightly in his comforter, but I didn't feel the weight of him beside me. I wiggled me way partially out of the blankets so I could sit up to look around. Relief washed over me when I saw him sitting on the couch at the foot of the bed. I threw my arms out towards him, in a beckoning gesture and it was not lost on me that I resembled a three year old.

"Are you sure love," Edward said sounding saddened. "The last time I touched you, you literally passed out from fear."

"Edward," I scoffed. "I was overwhelmed by everything that happened outside. And the smell of the smoke made me sick, which I don't think helped with anything."

"Don't try to make me feel better with silly stories," Edward snorted with a humorless laugh. "I always knew the day would come when you would be afraid of me and you would run away."

"Edward, I'm not afraid of you!" I screeched at him.

"Bella, you watched me rip the head off another sentient being," Edward said quietly. "Its okay to admit that it scared you."

"Well, it wasn't something I would want to see again," I admitted. "But I know you don't just go around killing people all the time. It was self defense, or defense of others, but it certainly wasn't cold blooded murder like you are making it out to be."

"I don't understand how you can love me," Edward whispered with a sigh.

"Edward come here," I said softly patting the bed next to me, and I waited until he did so before I continued. "Can't you just accept that I love you with all of my heart. I love everything about you. You won't scare me away by showing me the vampiric side of yourself."

"I love you Bella, but I don't deserve you." Edward said quietly as he pulled me against his chest."

"It's the other way around," I whisper trailing my hands up his chest to pull his face to mine.

"Bella, are you sure," Edward said, pulling away from our kiss quickly.

"Yes, I am sure," I said huskily. "Last night was just a fluke, it won't happen again."

"I don't know Bella," Edward said looking at me with uncertainty.

"Please Edward?" I begged him pulling his face back to mine.

He caved into my begging, and kissed me back. I could feel his hesitation in his lips, but I pushed on. I pulled on the hem of his shirt, and I felt his hesitation at first, but then he let me have my way. He broke our kiss to pull his shirt over his head, and I couldn't help but stare at his chiseled chest, that still had a slight glow from the sun that was coming through the curtain Edward had pulled in front of the window.

I ran my hands over his chest as we continued kissing. I trailed kisses down his throat while running my hands up into his hair. He moaned against my lips and I couldn't help but smile against his hard lips. I climbed over so I could straddle his waist, and to my surprise I felt his excitement.

"That's not such a good idea," Edward groaned as he picked me up and moved me off of him.

I was about to whine my protest, but he leaned me back against the pillows and continued kissing me. He kissed a fiery trail down my throat and I moaned his name. I resumed running my hands through his hear, and luxuriating in the satiny feeling against my skin. Why couldn't my hair feel that perfect?

"Tell me to stop if you feel uncomfortable," Edward whispered into my ear as he trailed his hands down from my hair.

He brought his hand down the sides of my throat eliciting another moan from me. A moan that quickly turned to a hiss of pleasure as his hand closed over my breast. My back arched on its own accord, and that seemed to urge him on. I ran my nails down the exposed skin on his back, and he shivered before leaning down to kiss my throat again.

He leaned his body into me as he reclaimed my lips fervently., and I felt him yet again. My mind flew from the room, remembering what it felt like to feel Joe pressed against me like this. My heart began to race, but I refused to let Edward know I was becoming upset. I looked into his eyes and thought only his name, not allowing myself to think of anything else.

He trailed his hands down my side, and my breath caught in my chest. I closed my eyes and tried to focus only on the coolness of his hands as the trailed under my shirt. I opened my eyes again when his hands met the bare flesh of my chest. I looked into his eyes, and I felt okay in that moment. My body only responded to Edward's touch, rather than the touches of my memories if I looked into his eyes.

I pulled on his neck to pull his lips back to mine. He spread my legs apart with his knee, and it felt as if my heart literally stopped before taking off at a sprint. He rubbed his leg against me, and while it felt good I felt another panic attack coming on. I wanted to scream in anger at how unfair it was, but I also wanted to hide it so Edward wouldn't know I was upset. As I weighed the options I realized that I would just need to keep trying until it didn't elicit fear in me. And the only way I would get Edward to let me keep trying would be to be honest with him.

"Edward, stop," I said breathlessly, putting my hands on his chest, but not actually pushing him away.

"Are you okay?" he asked, immediately pulling away and moving so he was laying beside me.

"I was starting to panic," I admitted. "But it was much better than last time."

"I'm so sorry," Edward groaned, throwing his arm over his eyes.

"No its not you. Its just bad luck," I soothed trying to pull his arm away form his eyes. "I want to keep trying though. Will you keep trying with me?"

"I'll try, but I can't promise that I will continue to be okay with this if it will be so upsetting for you each time."

"It won't be," I vowed. "It will get better. I promise."


	21. Chapter 21

The next couple of days were a blur. Between working on my vows, trying to convince Alice not to completely cover the house in flowers, and spending what time I could with Charlie everything was turning into a haze. I wanted to spend as much time with Charlie as I could before the wedding, so I agreed to go on a fishing trip with him, even though the idea of forcing a poor wriggling worm onto hook repulsed me.

We left the house so early Saturday morning that the sun wasn't even awake yet. I tried not to grumble because I knew when Edward and I left for our honeymoon; I would not be coming to see Charlie again for his own safety. We drove out of Forks, and pulled off onto one of the old service roads that I vaguely remembered lead both to an old abandoned forestry office, and an access point on the east side of the river. The further we drove down the road towards the river, the more crowded the foliage became. When Charlie pulled to a stop and the river still wasn't in sight I became very glad that I had worn fully covering clothing. It looked like we would be going for a bit of a hike, and the brambles looked like they had thorns.

The sun was starting to rise as we started our hike, so I could sort of see where my feet were falling. Everything was quiet around us except for the crunch of twigs under our feet, but I felt certain that Edward, or at least one of the Cullen's was somewhere nearby. The threat to my life was gone now, but Edward was always worrying about me.

After a few minutes of hiking we broke through the brush and we were on the bank of the river. There was a fallen tree branch that looked like the perfect fishing post to Charlie so he set his small bag and the cooler down next to it, and then reached for the poles I had carried.

"Do you want me to bait the hook for you Bells?" Charlie asked with a bit of a chuckle.

"No, I can do it," I said stubbornly, not wanting him to think I couldn't stomach it.

We both took a seat on the branch, which was surprisingly comfortable due to the moss that was growing on it. It was a little bit damp, but I knew the long johns under my jeans would keep me warm. I took the other pole from Charlie, and tried not to groan as I pulled on of the disgusting worms out of the white Styrofoam cup.

I focused very closely on what I was doing while I stuck the worm on the hook. Not because I wanted to see it, but because the last thing I needed to do was hook myself. Even though I was fairly certain that Charlie had a first aid kit in the little tackle bag he had brought with us.

"Be carefully when you cast, the trees are kinda low behind us," Charlie said as he stood and began to cast his line. "Don't want to get your pole all tangled up."

"I know," I chuckled while I listened to the zing of his line before the lure plunked into the water leaving his bobber floating in the tiny ripples.

I tried to copy what Charlie did, but of course I couldn't. My first cast was just a few feet out in the water, because I obviously did something wrong. I pretended that I couldn't here Charlie's chuckles as I reeled my line back in to try again. On my second cast the line went far enough out in the water that there was at least a fifty percent chance that there were fish there, so I let it stay there.

"So your mom should be flying in this next weekend to help with the last week of wedding preparations." Charlie said in a strangely gruff voice.

"Oh?" I said, keeping my eyes out on the water, so I wouldn't make him more uncomfortable. "Is Phil coming up with her?"

"I think so. I think he's getting the cast off in the next few days, so he should be able to come." Charlie said with a chuckle. "What rotten luck to break your leg while playing a sport."

"Yes, we would never want to make sports seem bad," I said with mock seriousness before breaking out into giggles.

"Hush child," Charlie said before giving me a gentle shove, which of course made me fall off the log and almost into the river. "Oh crap, I'm sorry Bell."

"No big," I sighed pulling myself up and dusting off my pants. "Falling is kind of my thing, you know I'm thinking about turning pro."

"You would probably make the Wheaties box within a few months." Charlie said with a laugh, picking up my fishing pole to hand to me after I sat down on the log again.

We sat in relative silence and just fished. The sun came fully up, lighting up our river back. I was surprised to discover how beautiful the area was. There were big ferns around us giving it an almost jungle feel. That made me laugh comparing it to the Amazon rainforest until I remembered that we were actually in the Olympic rainforest. Charlie gave me a strange look for the random laugh, so I just shook my head at him and looked back at the river. After we had been fishing for what felt like years, but was probably just a couple hours, Charlie spoke again.

"Hungry?" he said as he leaned his pole against the log and reached for the cooler.

"I could eat." I said with a smile setting my pole aside. There didn't appear to any fish biting today anyway.

Charlie pulled out two sandwiches and handed one to me. As I stared at the little sandwich in my hand and felt my heart flutter, I seriously considered going to therapy. I was making progress with how I was physical with Edward, and yet I was still terrified of a piece of bread. I could feel Charlie watching me, so I sucked it up and opened the little plastic bag. I knew Charlie wanted to see me act like I used to, so I didn't even peel the bread off. I gave him a tight smile and I took a bite of the sandwich.

To Charlie's credit the bread was fresh. There wasn't a stale particle in it. But it still felt like I was trying to force myself to eat a towel. My whole mouth dried out, and all I could taste was fear and darkness. I quickly chewed up the bite and forced myself to swallow it. I'm sure I looked like one of those little kids with a sore throat, they look like they are swallowing a giant rock. I am sure that was what I looked like to Charlie.

"Bell, you don't have to eat it if you don't want it." Charlie said with sadness in his eyes. "I've got some chips and an apple in here too."

"I can do it," I said, trying to sound determined. "It's just two pieces of bread with a whole bunch of stuff in between."

"No, I'm not going to watch you torture yourself over a sandwich Bella." He said with a sigh. "I don't know what I was thinking when I packed the lunch."

"It's fine…" I sighed moving to take another bite of the sandwich.

"Give me the damn sandwich," Charlie growled before grabbing it right out of my hands. "I've got the ruffled lays, you like those don't you?"

"Yeah, I love em," I said with a chuckle taking the bag he was holding out to me, and trying not to feel the tightening in my throat that threatened tears.

"We should probably pack it in after lunch, the fish aren't biting, and Alice put a bug in my ear last night that she wanted to do a fitting or something." Charlie said before setting in to work on his sandwich.

"Figures," I grumbled before eating a couple chips. "How many times does she need to fit a person anyway?"

Charlie just shrugged. We sat together and ate our lunch, each lost in our own thoughts about what Alice could possibly be doing. I just reminded myself that I could escape to my happy place while she did yet another fitting. In my happy place nothing with Edward could ever make my heart race in the wrong way. After about 15 minutes we had both finished eating so we started cleaning up. We got everything put back into the cooler, and reeled our fishless lines back in, and de-tackled the fishing poles so we could take them back to the truck with out getting them caught on a tree, or in my case cutting myself on the hooks.

When we had packed everything up started the hike back to the truck. We made it to where I could actually see the truck before my klutziness caught up to me for the day. I was stepping through the last of the bushes when I got my foot stuck and fell forward. Charlie tried to catch me, but lets face it he isn't a vampire, so he wasn't fast enough. I hit the ground knees and hands first.

I think the fall actually defied physics, because my hands we completely fine. Not a scratch on them. But my knee, completely covered by thick jeans and long johns, were cut open by a rock on the ground. I ripped my jeans and long johns, and cut my knee right open.

Charlie was there within a second to help me. Of course he had a first aid kit in his tackle bag, so he whipped it right out to help clean up my knee. Since the jeans were already ripped, we just ripped them further open instead of trying to roll them up. Charlie pulled supplies out of the first aid kit, and quickly went to work. I saw that he had pulled out rubbing alcohol and immediately closed my eyes. I could remember all the childhood injuries that had burned when the rubbing alcohol was applied and I was excited to feel it again.

It wasn't until after he opened the bottle that my more recent encounters with rubbing alcohol popped into my mind. As the to clean chemical smell hit my nose, my mind flew back into the dark basement, and the contents of my stomach flew up and onto the ground. I retched until all I could do was heave unproductively. Charlie had already capped the bottle and cleaned up me knee without the rubbing alcohol before I was done being sick. He was just finishing putting the big Band-Aid on when I realized I was passing out. I tried to lean into Charlie as the world faded out around me. My last thoughts were a silent prayer that I wouldn't land in my own vomit.


	22. Chapter 22

When I woke up I was laying no the couch in the living room. I was silently glad that Charlie hadn't attempted to carry me up to my bed. Firstly, because it would have been horrible for his aging back, and secondly because I could already smell the vomit on my clothes, and didn't want to think about trying to clean that off my bed. I sat up, and quickly climbed off the couch so I could access the damage. Charlie had though ahead to lay a blanket beneath me, so it looked like all I would have to do is throw the blanket in with my defiled clothing to rid the room of the mess. I grabbed the blanket of the couch and headed toward the laundry room, running into Charlie in the kitchen.

"Hey, you're awake." He said over the paper he had been reading. "How are you feeling?"

"I think I will feel much better after a shower." I said with a dark chuckle. "I think I am going to put one of my scented candles in the living room for a bit to try and get rid of the smell. Would you prefer vanilla or fresh cotton?"

"Cotton probably smells more manly," Charlie laughed, before a serious look fell over his face. "Was it the rubbing alcohol?"

"Yeah, the smell of it got me I guess," I said as I dropped my eyes to the floor in shame. "I felt fine when I saw you pull out the bottle, but when the smell hit me, I guess I wasn't fine."

"Its okay Bells, you're still doing light years better than those first days back," Charlie said in a gruff voice that betrayed his emotion. "You don't even cry out in your sleep anymore."

"The dreams have gotten better," I said to the kitchen floor feeling the blush burn in my cheeks. "I should get this stuff in the wash."

I continued on into the laundry room before Charlie could say anything else. I started up the washing machine and put some soap into it, before throwing the blanket in as well. I grabbed my robe off of the counter that had laundry I still needed to throw away as I closed the door to the laundry room. I pulled off my disgusting clothing, and threw them into the washer as well after wrapping myself up in the bathrobe.

I hurried up to my bedroom and dug two of my little cotton scented candles out of a box in the closet as well as the box of matches and trotted back down to the living room. I put the two candles on the table, and lit them before heading back up to my bedroom. I grabbed my bag of shower things and headed off to take a very long shower.

When I was out of the shower and headed back to my room in some of my most comfortable sweats and a tank top I noticed my door had been closed. That meant that Edward was probably in there, and didn't want Charlie to notice he was here without having driven. I slid into the room quickly and closed the door behind me. I was right, Edward was standing in front of the window looking out into the yard, but her turned around when the door clicked into place.

"Are you ok?" was all he asked with his words, but his eyes asked many more questions.

"Yes, my knee won't even need stitches," I joked with him crossing to the desk both to set my things down and to bring myself closer to Edward.

"You know that isn't what I mean," he said as his voice grew deeper. "Are you alright?"

"I am now," I whisper as I leaned my body into his embrace and sighing at the relief his contact brought. "Can we go to our meadow?"

"I would like that." Edward whispered into my hair. "Why don't you tell Charlie you are coming to my house, and we can drive your truck their before we leave for the meadow?"

"Okay," I smiled; quickly throwing together the overnight bag Charlie would need to see to believe I was staying over with Alice tonight. "See you in a few."

I turned to head downstairs and saw that Edward had already left. Charlie didn't take much convincing at all to let me go over to the Cullen house. I felt pretty sure that he already knew how often I lied about spending the night with Alice, but I had the feeling he couldn't bring himself to tell me know. Especially when the reason he thought of me as so delectate was fresh in his mind after my embarrassing and completely annoying fainting episode.

I hurried out of the house and jumped into my truck. Edward was already sitting in the passenger's side. I tossed my bag on the bench seat between us and put the keys into the ignition. I turned the keys, and the engine whined at me for a moment, and then went silent. I turned the key again, and it spluttered twice and then went silent. I pumped the gas pedal a few times, and tried again, but the stupid truck didn't make a sound. I looked pointedly over at Edward, our unbalanced agreement about a new car when the truck died floating to the front of my mind. He put his hands up in surrender and swore that he hadn't tampered with the truck.

"Well, run home to get the car, so I can go in and call you to pick me up," I grumbled as I grabbed my bag and slid back out of the truck.

I tromped back to the house and threw my bag down by the door before heading into the kitchen to grab the phone. Charlie was still sitting at the kitchen table, and looked up at me curiously.

"The truck won't start," I said simply. "I'm going have Edward come pick me up."

"Okay," Charlie said quickly. "Do you want me to call Billy and see if his son can come look at the truck?"

"I wouldn't bother, I think the truck has finally passed away." I said a bit more harshly than I meant to, still feeling suspicious about Edward.

I called Edward, and then waited for him to arrive in what Charlie would see as an appropriate amount of time while I sat on the front porch looking at our pitiful excuse for a garden. There were flowers somewhere in the mess of weeds, but mostly there were just masses of green plants that I couldn't identify climbing closer and closer to the porch. Gardening had never really been my thing, and Charlie didn't seem to enjoy it either, so we just let it go. Maybe someday I could learn to be better about it from Esme.

Since Edward had to pick me up, we didn't have to bother with driving out to the Cullen house before we took off towards the meadow. Edward drove quickly and before I knew it he was parking the Volvo on that same dirt road I had parked on at the beginning of our relationship. When we climbed out of the car, he quickly pulled me onto his back without speaking. This was old hat for us now. We flew through the forest and before I knew it, Edward was setting me on my feet at the opening to the meadow.

In the middle of the summer, the beauty of the meadow changed. The flowers of the spring have given way to Freesia and Irises making it seem even more like the meadow was made just for us. When the smell of the flowers washed over me, I felt I could better understand what Edward smelled when he was around me. Edward nuzzled my neck before he walked me to the middle of the meadow, to wear the grass was slightly worn down. This was our spot. We always laid right there, and we would again today.

We lay down in the grass, and I rested my head in the crook of Edward's shoulder and plaid with his shirt while I stared at the flowers swaying in the slight breeze. There was a bird singing somewhere near by, and everything was peaceful except inside my mind. I kept having to force thoughts about Joe and how he had ruined so much from my mind. I was tired of the frustrated thoughts that came from incidents like the one that happened today.

"Will you tell me what's going on in that amazing mind of yours?" Edward asked in a whisper as he ran his hand through my hair.

"I keep thinking of Joe. He makes me so angry." I whispered before burying my face in Edward's chest.

"He can never hurt you again," Edward said firmly as he pulled my chin up so he could see my face, successfully changing my position so that I was laying halfway on top of him.

"I know," I said feeling the heat rising in my face and the threat of tears in my throat. "I am just so tired of memories of him turning me into some kind of wilting flower."

"It's not like that," Edward said sadly. "And you are getting better everyday."

"I just want to be normal again Edward," I said desperately before leaning down to steal a kiss.

"You are normal," Edward growled passionately. "You are better than just normal."

"I want to feel like I used to feel," I said, feeling the tears start to break free. "I want to be with you without the hesitation. I want to spend time with Charlie without fainting. I want to wear a tank top without the terror that someone will see my back."

"In time all of those things will fade," Edward said sadly as he brushed away my tears.

"I want to feel right again, now." I said as a fierce determination grew within me. "Make me feel whole again Edward."

"What do you want me to do?" Edward asked with both devotion and confusion in his voice.

I didn't answer him, I just claimed his lips as my own. He kissed me back with hesitation at first, but then he let himself go. I fisted both of my hands in his hair and pulled him even closer, as if I could merge our very souls if I tried hard enough. Edward ran his hand down my back sending chills up my spine. They weren't fearful chills, and I felt almost sad when his hand came to rest on my lower back. I wanted more, and it actually felt foreign not to be fighting my body's reactions at this point.

I felt my hips begin to move against Edward, so I shifted my weight and slid off of him, hoping that he wouldn't realize what had been happening. The one time I had done that long before he had left during the beginning of our senior year, he had quickly ended our activities, and refused to even lay in the bed with me for the rest of the evening. Edward followed my movement, so that he was hovering over me, but he did not move to touch me.

"Are you okay?" He asked in a surprisingly husky voice.

"Yes," I said breathlessly staring up at him. "Why?"

"I felt your movements change as if you were escalating the situation," he said, trying to sound completely normal and failing. "But then you bailed off, so I thought you might be panicking."

"No," I managed to cough out before the laughter overtook me. "I just remembered your reaction to such a movement in the past, and I was hoping to avoid it."

Edward looked perplexed for a moment, and then as if he was trying to decide what to say to me, but I didn't give him a chance to before I leaned up to start kissing him again. When I felt him melt fully into the kiss I leaned back in the grass pulling him with me. I liked the feeling of his body against mine, though I was aware he was holding basically all of his weight off of me.

I ran my hands over Edward's chest as I kissed him, and when my hands brushed over his lower abs I felt him shudder slightly. This tempted me to go further, but I held off not wanting to drive him away with my enthusiasm. To my surprise and excitement Edward mirrored my motion, starting down at my hips. My skin felt like fire under his hand, as he climbed further up my torso. His hand ghosted over my breast, and my entire body quivered beneath him. He hesitated for a moment to get a read on me, but when he saw only desire in my eyes, he continued his path upward. He ran his hand up my neck and over my chin so he could brush his thumb across my lips. His hand caressed the side of my face while he kissed my lips gently.

When he raised his head again to look into my eyes, his hand began to descend again. I kept eye contact with him, while my body hummed with feeling under his touch. He brought his hand down to the first button on my blouse. He waited there, searching my eyes for something. I gave him a simply nod letting him know that I was okay. He undid the button.

My heart rate accelerated slightly, but it was not in fear. He listened to the fast beating and watched my face, trying to read what it meant. When he saw the desire in my eyes he continued, and within a few seconds all of the buttons were free of their prisons. The slight breeze in the meadow tickled my exposed skin, and my giggle stole Edward's attention from my chest.

He smiled at me and then lowered his face to place kisses on my chest. The logical part of my mind told me his lips should have been cold, but his kisses were like fire. I could feel the temperature of my entire body rising with my arousal. When he pulled my bra to the side to kiss my breast, I could not contain my moan. This seemed to spur him on as he began to suckle there. My mind felt hazy with the desire that was coursing through me, and I felt myself arching into him, but felt unable to control what my body was doing.

He pulled my bra back into place, and I actually pouted at him before he gave me his famous crooked smirk and began kissing his way down my stomach. When he reached the top of my jeans he ran his tongue across the skin there, and my entire body trembled. He paused, and looked up to try to judge my reaction by how my face looked. I don't know what he saw there, but it paused his descent. He continued to place light kisses along my abdomen, and massaged my hips gently with his hands. It felt fantastic, and yet my body was outraged at his close yet unmoving proximity to the heated area that was beginning for his attention. His kisses stilled so he could look up at my face while his hands roamed down my things. I moan in both pleasure and frustration, and lost sight of him for a moment when my eyes rolled closed on their own accord.

"Please," I begged with my eyes still closed, and my body trembling under his hands.

"Please what Bella?" Edward said in a voice I hardly recognized with how deep and sensual it had become.

"Please touch me," I whispered, suddenly embarrassed by what I was asking for.

"Do you want me to touch you or do you want me to kiss you?" Edward asked with a glimmer in his eyes.

I stared at him, confused as to whether he had understood what I had been asking him to do. His lips pulled up into that crooked smile again, and I realized that he had. I felt my entire body flush as I then realized what _he_ had been asking _me_. My mind hardly took a second to consider the question once I knew what it meant.

"Kiss," I whispered as I felt the blush grow stronger in my skin. I was certain my entire body looked at least a little pink at this point.

"I love your blush," Edward whispered huskily to me as he began to unfasten my jeans.

He pulled both my jeans and underwear off of my hips, and at the basically the same time, I reveled in the feel of the fresh grass beneath me, and the thankfulness of having worn cute silk panties today. I could feel Edward's body quiver against my thighs, and I saw that he was staring at my exposed core with an almost startling look of desire on his face. He looked up into my eyes once again, and I smiled at him and gave him yet another nod to let him know that this was okay.

He lowered his head and my world exploded. I could feel the cold of his lips and tongue, but it was as if my most private part had been begging for it all along and they had just got their wish. My thoughts were only of Edward, and when he began to flick his tongue against my bundle of nerves, the indecipherable words tumbling out between my moans gave it away that I couldn't think about anything. All I could do was feel the pleasure that was coursing through me. Somewhere in the recess of my mind I was aware that I had begun thrusting my hips forward, and not only was that likely to upset Edward but it was altogether strange behavior for me. I felt his strong hand bringing my hips to rest just as I was hit by my orgasm. It felt as if something within me had ripped and from the opening rushed warmth and pleasure. It was as if I had instantly turned to a warm puddle of mush. Before my eyes drifted closed, I saw a very pleased looking Edward sitting back up.


	23. Chapter 23

After I felt like I could stand on my own we decided to abandon the meadow with its failing sunlight and hurry home. I held sleepily onto Edward's back as we raced through the trees. Edward kept laughing when I would sigh into his neck. I couldn't be sure, but I assumed it was a relieved laughter. I am sure he had also wondered if we would ever be able to have the type of relationship we had been moving towards before, I know I had and it was an amazing relief to know that we could. Surely there would be more bumps when it came to things that reminded me of Joe, but I could finally see the light at the end of the tunnel.

The ride back in the Volvo was peaceful and mostly quiet other than the quiet music slipping from the radio. Edward was focusing on the road, and I was focusing on him. I found myself wishing that I were a mind reader, just to have a peak into his mind. He seemed so very happy as he watched the road, and I wanted to know what exactly he was thinking about. Before it had been very long we were parking in the garage. Edward came around to my side quickly to open the door for me, and I took his hand as we walked over to the door that would open into the kitchen.

"Oh snap!" Emmett yelled as we entered the house. "Eddie got some!"

I felt my face flush immediately, and to my horror I felt tears begin to sting my eyes. Why should I be embarrassed about what had happened between Edward and I? It had been special, and what I had wanted for such a long time. But I couldn't help it, Emmet made me feel dirty by yelling it out like that, and I could no longer stand the idea of being dirty thanks to Joe. I had the fleeting thought that it was odd that I hadn't become OCD or something before I bolted for the stairs.

"Emmet, I swear to god!" I heard Edward yelling as he crossed into the living room where Emmet was sitting on the couch. "What the hell were you thinking just now?"

"You should know mind reader,' Emmet laughed.

I stopped listening then because I had reached the top of the stair and was sprinting towards Edward's bedroom. It didn't appear they were yelling anymore anyway because I couldn't hear them. I ran into Edward's bathroom and locked the door behind me. I was suddenly focused only on the idea of being clean. I quickly turned on the bath tap and began running a terribly hot tub of water. I could feel that I was about to loose myself in a fit of tears so I pulled the radio I knew Edward had under the sink out and turned it up fairly high. I was pleasantly surprised to hear what was playing on the radio. Broken by Lifehouse was playing as I slid into the water trying to stifle my hiss at the heat. While I was happy with the song hitting my mood on the head I knew I would have to keep myself from crying until a louder song came on.

When I began washing my hair the radio DJ said they were going to be playing a Flyleaf set, and a breathed a sigh of relief, many of their songs were loud and would cover the tears I didn't think I could fight off much longer. When I heard the dulcet tones of Amy Says coming through the speakers I was want to scream at the DJ to stop playing quiet songs. I instead settled for sinking under the water and holding my breath for as long as I could before surfacing to finish rinsing the shampoo out of my hair.

When the loud beginning of Fully Alive came on I let myself go. I cried my heart out as I massaged the conditioner into my hair and began scrubbing my entire body with the strangely rough loofah Edward had in the bathroom. I was zoned out wondering if it better stimulated his tough skin when I heard the pounding on the door. It snapped me back to the present and I quickly realized that even though I couldn't hear what I assumed to be Alice yelling to me through the door, I knew what she was yelling about. I had continued rubbing my skin in the same spot on my arm with the same strong force and I had torn the skin open. There was actually quite a bit of blood running out of my arm, staining the bathwater. Just when I was about to say something to Alice through the door the song changed to I'm So Sick and I became distracted. I continued to stare at the blood dispersing in the water. It reminded me of making koolaid with Rene when I was a kid. I was only thinking of the beauty of the blood in the water, so at first I didn't even realize that I was reaching for the razor on the side of the tub. I held it in my hand as I listened to the song. Then as if I were on some strange autopilot I began to break the razor so I could pull one of the blades out. I was just pressing it against the flesh of my inner wrist when the song ended and Alice broke down the bathroom door.

The world was a blur around me, and I was suddenly very aware of what was going on. I threw the blade on the ground with a gasp, but then to my surprise I saw the blood on it that splashed onto the bathroom floor. I looked down at my wrist and saw that I had torn a jagged line down towards my hand and it was bleeding. The blood was pouring out quickly and there was a lot of it. I started to panic, but I only had a second to do so before Alice was pressing a towel tightly to my wrist before puling me out of the tub. She wrapped a bigger towel around my body and pulled me into the bedroom, where I was embarrassed to see Rosalie standing there with my clothes in her hand and a sad look on her face. I became even more panicked when I realized I was starting to have trouble making out the features of her face.

"Rosalie, come over here and hold this onto he wrist while I get her dressed." Alice barked out an order which Rosalie

"Why do you think she did it?" Rosalie whispered. Or at least it sounded like she had whispered from the other room. Like she wasn't in the same room as me.

"She didn't actually plan it, so I don't have a clue?" Alice said back. "Oh good Carlisle, did you bring the blood?"

I tried to look and see, but I realized that everything had grown dark around me. It was like someone had turned off the lights. I was trying to force myself to calm down, I was sure that my heart pounding in panic would just make me bleed out faster. How had I ended up here? I thought that the three of them were being awfully quiet until I realized that I just couldn't hear anymore. I had one more moment to wonder what that meant before I wasn't aware of anything anymore.


	24. Chapter 24

**EPOV**

I wanted to rip Emmet limb from limb the second he opened his mouth. I should have known that he would smell what had happened and be unable to keep his mouth shut, but I unfortunately had thought that even he had the sense not to be crass about such things in front of Bella. Everyone could see that she was still so fragile even though she tried to pretend she was fine.

"Emmet I swear to God!" I yelled as my legs began carrying me toward him one their own. I could hear Bella bolting to our room and it only heightened my anger. "What the hell were you thinking just now?"

"You should know mind reader," Emmet laughed his thoughts not showing that he could tell how angry I really was.

"I could literally bash you thick skull in!" I yelled at him as I pulled him up from the couch by the collar of his shirt. I saw his move to shove me off of him, so I dropped his collar and locked his arms behind his back and began moving him out the side door into the yard.

"What the hell man?" Emmet growled, his anger starting to arrive now that I had him in a submissive position.

"Before I beat the crap out of you I will give you three seconds to think about why you shouldn't have said anything remotely sexual in front of Bella," I kicked out his knee so he was kneeling on the ground and pressed my weight into him while I listened to the wheels start to slowly turn in his mind.

"Oh shit," Emmet said when it finally clicked into place. I could see his guilty thoughts, and feel his guilt radiating from Jasper's mind, though I tried desperately not to feel Bella's emotions so I could focus on the task at hand. "You should beat me up, since Bella can't. I just wasn't thinking. Rose is gonna kick my ass too."

I was just about to hit him, if only to release my own tension, when I heard Alice yell from the house. "Jasper hold your breath and get out of the house. Rose come with me."

As Jasper tore past me heading for the woods, I got a read on the panic he was pulling from Alice and Rosalie, as well as thirst, but I was more disturbed by the numbness coming from Bella. I flipped my mind away from Jasper to focus in on Alice. Her mind was confusing, it was flipping between present though and searching of the future. The present had her banging on the bathroom door because Bella appeared to have rubbed her arm raw, but the future showed Alice having to hold a towel tightly too her wrist. Alice was confused, and so was I. How could an abrasion bleed so profusely. I heard the music Bella was listening to switch, and then a new vision popped into Alice's mind and we both understood that her vision of the towel seen had been because Bella was about to cut her wrist with the razor she would normally use to shave.

Before I could even comprehend the anger that was coursing through me I was hitting Emmet. I could hear Alice singing to herself in her head so I couldn't see what was going on, and Carlisle trying to keep his mind focused on patients he had seen earlier today though I could see him searching for his medical supplies. As much I needed to go up and ascertain for myself that the love of my life would be okay, I could not stop myself from pounding my anxiety into Emmet. If he were human he would be bloody and bruised by now, but now his stone-like body showed no sign of the punishment I was dealing it, if I weren't hearing the cracking sound similar to two rocks smashing together I wouldn't even know I was actually hitting him. He wasn't moving or responding to the blows, it was as if he was resigned to just take it.

"Why are you just sitting there?" I screamed at him as I threw him into a tree and turned my back on him so I could tear at my hair instead of trying to hurt someone else.

"I'm not gonna hit you back man," Emmet said as he stood up and brushed himself off. "I earned a good beat down. It should have come from Bella but she would have just broken her hand or something."

"I don't think she's in the shape to hit anyone now." I moaned as I turned towards to house trying to fight the urge to go to Bella until Alice stopped singing in her head, which would let me know that Bella had clothes on now.

"What's going on up there anyway?" Emmet asked sitting down in the grass and leaning against the tree I had just thrown him towards.

"Alice is trying to hide everything from me, but it looks like it started out innocent enough, Bella had scrubbed her arm to hard and broke the skin, but then something changed and I guess she decided to slit her wrist. It seems like its bleeding pretty bad, I heard Carlisle thinking about how he needed to grab the blood he keeps locked away just incase something bad like this were to happen. Well not that he saw this particular incident coming."

"Slit her wrist?" Emmet whispered as his head fell into his hands. "I didn't know she would do something like that. I never should have said a word."

"I wouldn't have seen her doing this either," I said quietly not sure if I was talking to him or myself. "I need to see into Alice's mind to know if she planned it out or if it just sort of happened. But how can something like that just happen?"

"She's been a bad place since we got back, maybe we should have seen something like this coming." Emmet said softly.

"I will never forgive myself for leaving. If I had been here he never would have been able to abduct her, and she wouldn't be broken the way she is." I nearly growled to myself.

"I know neither of you want to hear this, but I think she needs some counseling." Emmet said softly, looking ready to be hit again. "What she went through isn't something anyone just gets over on their own."

"I think you are right…" I admitted sadly. "There are so many little things that can make her panic because of it, now add that she might actually be suicidal and I think anything but therapy is out of the question."

"Lucky Esme has her PhD in psychiatry." Emmet tried to force a laugh but it failed.

"So do I!" I said possessively. "Bella can talk to me."

"Edward, I can understand that you want to keep her close, but this isn't something Bella is likely to talk to you about." Emmet said calmly. "She would probably be more comfortable talking to a girl, and Esme is always so caring with her, I think it would make her comfortable enough to talk about what's going on in that mind of hers."

"Emmet I think we need to give you more credit." I sighed. "You always get treated like such an idiot, but I think you might be smarter than me."


	25. Chapter 25

**BPOV**

When I started to wake up, I felt weigh down and foggy but I couldn't remember why I should feel that way. I started to notices a scratching noise near my head, so I opened my eyes. It took a minute for my eyes to focus, but when they did I saw that Edward was standing looking out of his bedroom window, and Esme was sitting next to me writing something in a journal.

"What are you writing?" I asked surprised by how rough my voice sounded.

"I was just taking some notes based on what the others thought happened today." Esme said quietly. "I would like to hear from you though."

"Esme, I should probably talk to her first, before we jump into anything." Edward said as he crossed over and sat next to me on the bed.

"What?" I asked both of them, feeling confused.

"Sure, I'll just be in the living room, let me know when you are ready for me to come back up." Esme said softly before she left the room.

"What are you guys talking about Edward?" I asked, before he silenced my lips with a chaste kiss.

"How are you feeling?" he asked as he brushed some hair out of my face.

"A little tired, mostly just confused." I said honestly.

"Do you remember what happened yesterday afternoon?" Edward asked quietly.

"Mostly, it was an accident I swear. I never really decided to do it. I had it in my hand, but I didn't even feel the skin break, but then I was bleeding so much." I rushed. "I didn't mean to do it."

"shhh, I believe you," he said quickly. "I don't think you consciously made a decision to do it. I think there are some subconscious things going on there. I think there is still a lot left over from the time you were away that you haven't been able to deal with."

"Maybe." I whispered. "Most days I feel fine, but other days, its… difficult."

"I think you need help with the… difficult parts," Edward said quietly as he rubbed my arm. "I think you need help that I can't give you."

"Is that why Esme was here?" I asked as I looked towards the window.

"Esme has a Ph.D. in psychology, I think she could be useful to you." Edward said quietly, seeming to fear my response.

"Alright. I don't think that's such a bad idea." I agreed looking back to him. "I want to be better so we can have a normal happy marriage."

"Do you think we should postpone the wedding until you've gone through some therapy?" Edward asked quietly.

"No!" I rushed. "I don't want to wait for that. I'm willing to go through therapy, but not if it costs me quality of life to do so."

"That seems like a fair statement," Edward said calmly before smiling. "I didn't want to wait anyway."

"Well, we should probably get this ball rolling." I said with a sigh. "Where do you think Esme wants to do this?"

"She's waiting in the small sunroom out back." Edward said as he stood and reached for my hand. "It is actually fairly sound proof, and she will turn on a fan in the ceiling to help with that. Its where people in the family who cant read minds go to have private conversations. People can still hear, but its muffled and indistinct."

"Vampire's and their super hearing," I scoffed as I let Edward lead me to this room I had somehow never been taken into.

"Hello Bella," Esme said quietly. "How are you feeling today?"

"Its had its ups and downs I suppose," I chuckled, trying to make light of the situation.

"Edward, will you close the door behind you sweetheart?" Esme said, in a clear but motherly instruction to leave the room.

"Yes," he said quietly as he began backing up. "I'll be at the piano when you are done Bella."

"Okay." I said starting to feel nervous.

Edward left the room, and clicked the door closed behind him. Esme then reached for a small remote, and pressed a button to turn on the ceiling fan. When it was gently whirring, she looked at me again.

"Okay, so I have been doing some thinking on how to approach this since the incident, and I think I have come to a decision. I wanted to take your often logical approach to what is happening to you into account, and what always stuck out to me, was that the unconscious emotional responses seemed to be the root of what is disrupting your life. What do you think about that?" Esme asked softly.

"I'd say that is pretty accurate." I whispered.

"My thoughts on approaching this is to do something called EMDR. Basically it's a combination of the effects of hypnosis, without hypnotizing you of course, and talk therapy, to get at the emotions that are causing negative responses." Esme explained as she pulled out a piece of paper.

"What does that mean exactly?" I said.

"Well we are going to pull up a target image, or a scenario that has caused a toxic reaction for you. We are going to identify the level of toxicity of it. Then we are going to have you think about that image while I do an eye movement exercise with you, and keep reminding you that you are ok. We will break after a few second and check the toxicity level again." Esme continued to explain. "It will be very difficult at first, but each time we do it your response to the image will lessen. We will do this with all of your triggers, not in each session of course, until your reaction to each is of a low level of toxicity that you can easily deal with."

"Okay…" I said, feeling the nerves begin. "Where should we start?"

"I would like to start with something a little less jarring than the incident with Emmet. Instead I would like you to pull up the mental image that you associate with your negative reaction to rubbing alcohol. I want you to describe to me what you see, and rate the level it alarms you on a scale of 1 to 10." Esme explained as she held the pen above her paper.


	26. Chapter 26

When Esme had first described the EMDR therapy I thought it was going to be easy. It was only after she described the target image concept to me that I understood how difficult it was going to be. I thought I was just supposed to picture a bottle of rubbing alcohol, which I figured I could handle without completely loosing it. But then she had explained that I had to pull up the image of what caused me to be upset by the rubbing alcohol, my heart sank. I tried to bolster my strength, but forcing myself to think again and again of that dark basement and Joe Mason's cleansing rituals while I followed the movement of Esme's hand was terrorizing.

By them time we had finished I was completely drained. We continued going through the exercise until I could rate the toxicity of my response at a two, and I was surprised to be able to reach that point. I didn't think I would ever be able to think about those days in the basement without completely freaking out.

After the session I let Edward take me straight home to Charlie's house. I had to walk into the house on my own so Charlie wouldn't know that Edward was staying. When he saw my puffy eyes and tired posture he didn't push on how late I was coming home from the Cullen's. He looked like he was going to ask how I was but I just shook my head, and told him I was going to head up to bed.

I pulled myself groggily up the stairs, and tossed on pajamas without even heading to the shower. I was just too tired. I was just sliding under the covers when Edward crawled in through my window. He joined me cautiously on the bed, and I quickly leaned into him.

"How are you doing love," he asked softly.

"I'm okay," I answered, surprised to realize that I was telling the truth. "I just want you to hold me while I sleep."

"It would be my pleasure." Edward smiled into my hair as he pulled me closer.

_-_-_-_.

_-_-_-_.

The days leading up to the wedding were a lot like that one. It was tiring, but I felt like I was making progress. The day before the wedding, I was allowed to skip out on therapy courtesy of Alice and her demands that I not be exhausted before the wedding. I even sat down for a bite of lunch after Alice did one last fitting of the dress, and ate entire sandwich with two slices of bread without incident. The therapy may have been frustrating, but it did seem to be working.

Alice chauffeured me back to Charlie's house after I had kissed Edward goodbye for the last time. She was chasing him off to go hunting with his brothers for a vampire version of a bachelor party. I wasn't allowed to see him until tomorrow during the wedding, and I was trying to pretend that wasn't bothering me.

The night passed quickly, and without nightmares. Though I did have some interesting dreams about Edward. I woke up still thinking about the dreams, and looking forward to the honeymoon where I could make those dreams a reality before my heart sunk. Edward had been hinting that he thought going was a bad idea. But my heart jumped again when I realized he hadn't said no yet.

With that thought I sighed and rolled out of bed, cheered by that thought. The story was going to be told was going to make it so that everyone would think we had left, and the story about our yacht capsizing off the coast of Oregon. So sometime after the honeymoon we would be able to move forward with my change whenever we wished.

I threw on a tank top and an old pair of painting shorts, and grabbed a granola bar from the kitchen before hoping into my trunk and heading over to the Cullen mansion to let Alice begin her torture routine. I almost choked on the last bite of granola bar, as I pulled up to the house and saw Emmet and Jasper erecting a tent in the backyard, and twinkling white lights adorning all of the trees in the yard. I tumbled out of my truck with the intention of investigating the new decorations when a bouncing Alice cut me off.

"ah ah ah, into the house with you," she chimed as she grabbed my wrist.

"Come on Alice, can't I see the yard first?" I groaned unsuccessfully trying to pull out of her grasp.

"No Bella, it's a surprise," she chided as if I should have know this. "Now close your eyes."

She wouldn't let me come into the house until I closed my eyes, and then she covered them with her hands, not trusting me to keep them closed on my own. As soon as we were inside the house, I could tell there would be floral decorations somewhere, I could smell them. I thought about trying to figure out what kinds of flowers they were, but I knew I would be awful at it since I had absolutely no experience with flowers. I tried to refrain from dragging my feet as Alice pulled me up the stairs so I couldn't trip and ruin the whole day.

She bustled me into her room and finally allowed me to open my eyes. I almost wanted to shut them again in denial when I saw that there were all sorts of clothes strewn all over the room, and the bathroom counter was covered in more beauty products than I could name.

"Okay Bella, jump in the shower," she instructed. "I put stuff in there for you to shave, and an exfoliating scrub. Use them both, but be careful not to scratch your self or anything like that. I will be in here getting everything else ready while you shower."

I could hear the hidden meaning in her words, but I stifled my sigh. She was probably worried that I was going to have a repeat episode of my last bathroom experience at the Cullen house. I wished that people would give me a little more credit. I climbed into the shower and forced my thoughts to less annoying things. I hurried through the shower routine; sure that Alice would want to get a move on with the rest of her beauty rituals

When I was finished I quickly dried off and wrapped the towel tightly around myself before climbing out of the shower. I looked around for clothes to put on, but all Alice had sitting on the counter was undergarments and a robe. I quirked an eyebrow at her but put my hands out for them none the less.

"We don't want the clothes to make impressions on your skin," she sighed as if she was talking to a very unintelligent child. "Plus the robe won't ruin your hair when you take it off.

I just shook my head at her, and gestured for her to leave the room so I could change in private. As soon as I had thrown everything on I opened the door to let her come back in and went to sit in the chair she had sitting in front of the counter and allowed myself to look at everything scattered across the counter. As I looked I realized it actually seemed pretty organized. All the hair products where in one section, and the eye makeup in another, and so on and so forth.

Alice came back in and immediately when to work on my toenails. I was about to ask her why she was even bothering when I would be wearing a floor length dress, but I knew better than to ask. She quickly finished with my toes and told me not to move my feet so the polish wouldn't get smeared while it dried.

She did the same to my fingernails, and I had to admire how nice they looked. She had given me a French manicure and it looked very pretty, even if it was awfully girly. After that I zoned out, thinking about my time with Edward in the meadow, and what our honeymoon would be like.

I must have been faded out for longer than I thought, because when I focused back in I saw that my makeup was done, and Alice was pinning a flower into my hair that was pulled into an intricate and curly updo.

"Welcome back," Alice chuckled. "Its almost time."

"Wow Alice," I gasped. "I don't even recognize myself.'

"I hardly even had to do anything Bella," Alice chuckled as she turn to the mirror and began pulling her hair out of curlers that I didn't remember her outing it in. "Edward is right about you not seeing yourself clearly."

After that it was time to get into the dress. Alice had been kind enough to track down an intricately woven lace jacket with a collar and short sleeves for me to wear over the dress. It looked as if it was part of the dress, and masked the scar on my back so no one could see. I slid out of the robe with my eyes closed so I wouldn't have to think about Alice looking at my nearly naked body as she helped me into the dress and zipped it. Once the zipper was up I opened my eyes and took the jacket from Alice to quickly slide it on. The intricate belt contraption that closed the jacket was too complex so I had to let Alice fasten it for me.

I was still admiring myself in the mirror when Rene came through the bathroom door. I stifled my jump as best I could. I couldn't explain it, but ever since I had escaped from that basement I felt uncomfortable around my mother. This was the first time I had been in the same state as her since everything had happened, and it was strange to feel so different from her. I could tell by her extra bounciness that she had noticed my strange behavior and was trying not to let it bother her unsuccessfully.

"Bella you look so beautiful," she gushed as she came over to me. I could see that she wanted to pull me into a hug but she stopped herself and just stood looking at me. "I have a gift for you."

She handed me a small jewelry box and I opened it carefully, discovered a beautiful chain of cultured pearls inside. I smiled at her and thanked her graciously for the gift. Alice pulled it from the box and helped me to put it on. It looks perfect with the dress, and I found myself wondering if Alice had been the one to pick it out.

I gave Renee a quick hug in thanks, and saw her face light up, before Alice herded her out to go find her seat. When she came back in with the flowers, she had Charlie in tow. I looked between the bouquet of freesia and forget-me-nots and my father, realizing it was finally time. I felt my heart begin to race, but I was relieved to feel that it was in excitement and nothing else.

"Baby, you look like a movie star," Charlie said gruffly as he stepped forward a bit and cautiously offered me his hand. "Are you ready?"

Rosalie must have heard the question, because she immediately began to play the piano downstairs. I was incredibly surprised to discover Rosalie, the skilled mechanic, was also a fairly skilled musician, though Alice told me that she was much better at playing the violin. We had sat down together to discuss how to approach the music for the wedding, and it had been an entirely frightening experience, as Rosalie was still incredibly intimidating at the time. After such a candid conversation both about music, and her past experiences that we now seemed to have in common, I felt much more connected to her, and even considered her a friend.

I smiled to myself as I heard the soft yet powerful tones of I'm yours drifting up the stairs. I knew that Alice would be on her way down the aisle as my maid of honor. I pictured her arm in arm with Carlisle, Edward's best man, as I let Charlie lead me out to the stairs. We stood at the top of the stairs, out of view of the crowd that I could hear shifting in their seats as they watched down below us. I took in what decorations I could see from our hidden position, and I realized that Alice had really outdone herself this time. There were more freesia and forget-me-not flowers adorning the banister and a crisscrossing of tulle and gossamer ribbon above all of use.

The piano music shifted to Today by Joshua Radin, and that was our cue to go. We started carefully moving down the stairs, and I silently prayed that I wouldn't trip and fall on my face in front of everyone watching downstairs. We made it down the stairs safely and rounded the corner that brought us into the main room where everyone was waiting. My eyes drifted over the crowd, and I might have become nervous if my I hadn't locked onto Edward, and lost the breath right out of my chest. He was absolutely stunning in his black three-piece suit. I imagined his emerald green tie would have looked amazing with his human eyes, but with his beautiful topaz eyes it was stunning.

I nearly dragged Charlie down the aisle to get to Edward quicker. It seemed to take a decade to get to him, and I felt nearly winded when we finally did get to the end. I barely heard what Mr. Weber was saying from the makeshift alter, and suddenly Charlie was putting my hand into Edward's, and it was as if I had been in pain and suddenly I was not. I breathed a deep breath and followed Edward up to where we would be wed.

The ceremony seemed to last only a second, and suddenly we were being pronounced husband and wife. I was aware of saying my vows, and noticing how much better they sounded out loud than they had in my head and on paper, but it all just flew by so fast. It felt so surreal. Mr. Weber to Edward to kiss me, and even though the kiss was short and sweet I saw stars. I couldn't be sure if it was because of how short of breath I was, or if it was because I had just had my first kiss as a married woman.

We seemed to float down the isle and out onto the back porch for the receiving line, and then time seemed to slow back down to regular speed once again. I began to be able to take in my surroundings, and I saw that it had just become twilight outside, making our wedding reception location look like a magical fairy garden. Our guests began to hugs us, and shake our hands in congratulations, and I was able to see who was here. I saw everyone I had graduated with, a few of the people from the reservation that I hadn't remembered inviting, and several vampires that I assumed were the Denali clan.

Dancing with Edward for our first dance was amazing. Somehow I managed to waltz with him without ending the world, and it felt magical. I was relieved to feel nothing but love with his hands on my waist. I even allowed him to kiss me again as the song ended. I was then passed to Charlie for the father daughter dance, and it was much less grateful. It was never more clear where I had gotten my clumsiness from when Charlie stepped on my strappily heeled foot, and it took intervention from Edward to keep us from sprawling across the dance floor.

After that I was subjected to dances with many of the men who had attended the wedding, though I took some comfort in watching Edward be subjected to the same torture. I was trying to force my way through a dance with Mike Netwon, and I calmed myself by watching Edward try to appear interested in whatever Jessica Stanely was saying.

It began to rain as the reception started to wind down, and we bid farewell to the guests one by one. I kept waiting to be whisked away by Alice to be changed into some ridiculous travel outfit, but somehow that time never seemed to come. I followed Edward into the house after Esme shooed us away telling us we weren't allowed to clean up after our own wedding I tried to ignore my confusion as Edward went into the kitchen instead of upstairs to change.

"Bella would like something more substantial than wedding cake to eat?" he asked as he opened the fridge. "You must be starving."

"I could eat." I said hesitantly wondering if we would be allowed to leave after I ate something. I tried not to be annoyed with how concerned Edward seemed to be about my food intake still.

Edward quickly made me a turkey sandwich, and set it in front of me with a tall glass of orange juice. I made quick work of the meal, hoping to get on the road to our mystery location soon. I went over and put my plate and cup straight into the dishwasher, not wanting to attempted prewashing them in my wedding dress. When I saw Edward just watching me calmly without any sign that he was planning to change I sighed and turned to leave the room.

I went upstairs myself, and decided that if Alice wasn't going to be intervening I would wear whatever I wanted to travel in, fashion be dammed. I dug through my things and pulled out a pair of jeans and a black shirt. I went into the adjoining bathroom and very carefully removed the jacket and wedding dress. I pulled on the outfit I had picked up, and took the dress and jacket down to the second floor, and went into Alice's bedroom to find the garment bag that was hanging on her four-poster bed. I put the dress in the bag and zipped it back up before hurrying down to the living room to see what Edward was up to. He was sitting on the couch with Emmet who was setting up rock band, apparently the reception had already been torn down.

"Um, are you playing rock band Edward?" I questioned as I leaned on the doorframe.

"Emmet had asked me if I would, but I wanted to see if you were interested first." Edward said turning to look at me. "Do you want to play?"

"Um, I guess I could for a little while," I said beginning to cross to the couch. "But when are we leaving?"

"Leaving?" Edward asked quietly, turned all the way around to face me.

"For the honeymoon, obviously." I sighed stopping in my tracks.

"What… Bella we can't go," Edward said quietly, as Emmet got up to leave sensing the growing tension in the room.

"Why not?" I groaned crossing my arms like a petulant child.

"Its too soon to have such a large gap in your therapy," Edward nearly whispered. "We can still go the island later, the tickets won't expire for awhile."

"Therapy? Are you kidding me?" I yelled. "When do I get to be in control of my life Edward? Or even be included in conversations that involve me."

"Bella it's not like that," Edward said trying to sooth me.

"Sure it isn't," I yelled, feeling the tears building. "Poor crazy Bella, she isn't sane enough to decide where she can go, or what she can have for dinner."

"Bella," Edward groaned, but I was running towards the door, not listening to him. "Where are you going?"

"Where ever!" I want I shouted at him sliding on my shoes that sat next to the door. "If you don't want to spend our wedding night with me, then I will spend it by myself!"

"Come back here," Edward said moving towards me, but not trying to grab me in such a frazzled state.

"No," I yelled, the tears finally breaking free. "No Edward, I am going for a drive, and you are not going to follow, or so help me!"

I stormed out of the house without looking to see if he was following me. I grabbed the keys to his Volvo off of the hook in the garage, and ran over to the car. I jumped into the driver's seat, and started the ignition. I tore forward without thinking, and I would have hit the garage door, but Edward was holding the button to open the door. I felt a tiny bit of my anger toward him ebb away at his thoughtfulness.

I tore down the winding drive, tears blurring my eyes, luck not to crash. I made it to the paved road, and wiped angrily at my tears in an effort to avoid an accident. I swerved sharply after my eyes cleared, realizing I had been driving in the wrong lane. It starts to feel as if I am watching myself do these things from somewhere else.

I slow down as I pull into town, not sure where exactly I am planning to go. I drive aimlessly through the streets, but there isn't much to say, its getting late into the evening and most people have settled in for the night. As I pull through the last street, I see that there is a party going on at Jessica's house. People have spilled out onto the lawn, having some sort of after party, still wearing the clothes they had on at the wedding. I think about stopping, but I don't want everyone to know that Edward and I are having a fight so soon after our wedding. I pull back onto the high way. My anger has calmed, and I want to make up with Edward. I reach into my jeans for my phone to call him, and realize that I never grabbed it when I left the house. I look back up at the road, but in the few seconds I was looking down I have begun to drive off the road. The car is racing towards the edge of a deep embankment. I jerk the wheel to the left trying to get back onto the pavement, but this is an over correction. Then everything is spinning. The car is rolling over the pavement, the windows shattering. It feels like I am on fire, my skin is being torn open, and I am being smashed all around. I almost wish I wasn't wearing my seatbelt so I would be thrown from the car and everything will stop moving. The car finally comes to a stop on top of a fence on the other side of the road. My window is no longer there to protect me. I feel blinding pain as the fence post impales my abdomen. Everything goes black.


	27. Chapter 27

EPOV

I opened the garage door just in time to keep Bella from crashing into it, and then I just stood there watching after her. How could I have made that play out better? I had thought we were at a mutual understanding that the honeymoon needed to be postponed, but clearly I was mistaken. I hadn't even noticed that there was an issue until Bella came downstairs in jeans instead of pajamas after the wedding. I had thought she would be getting ready for bed, but she looked like she was planning to go somewhere, and that's when I became nervous.

She must have been getting agitated before that moment though, because he anger was quick to ignite when I said we were going anywhere. She is usually much more level headed than that. I groaned and tugged at my hair when I couldn't figure out a way this could have been avoided.

I slowly headed back into the house, and walked straight over to my piano in the living room. I saw Emmet sitting on the couch playing a racing game with the sound turned off. He turned to me when I entered, but I shook my head at him not wanting to talk about it. He went back to his game, and I started to play. I played through Bella's lullaby three times before I felt completely calm again. Once I was calm, I felt remorse for upsetting Bella so greatly. If she was looking so forward to the honeymoon, even after what happened to her, maybe it was only right to take her on one. I was just allowing myself to picture Bella on the beach, when suddenly I was seeing something entirely different, from inside of Alice's mind.

_ The road was dark, but the headlights of the Volvo burned bright as they flew across the road. For some reason the car started to drift off the road, and just before it could fall off the side of the steep incline, it jerked back onto the road. _I had a moment of relief before I realized the car was still out of control._ It skidded on the pavement, and its moment propelled it into the air, and it began to flip and roll across the road and up the side of the hill. It crashed onto the top of a fence and came to a stop. The blood began to flow quickly out onto the ground, but I couldn't see the source._

"When Alice?" I gasped, jumping up.

"Now," she gasped skidding to a stop at the bottom of the stairs.

"Send Carlisle," I cried over my shoulder as I tore out of the house, and out to the highway.

I flew through the trees, and hit the pavement quicker than I expected. I raced down the road; not caring is someone saw me. Luckily there was no one there to see me. I nearly dropped to the ground from a dead run when I came upon the scene. I arrived just in time to see the car slam down on the fence, and creak and groan as it came to a wobbly stop. Within second I could smell the floral aroma of Bella's blood permeating the air. I raced over to the car, and nearly vomited when I saw what the source of the blood was. The fence post had thrust completely through her. It was poking out of the other side, and it had clearly severed her spine.

I was just reaching gingerly through the window to pull her from the car when I heard Carlisle break through the trees. I ignored whatever he was saying to me, and focused on moving her as carefully as I could off of the fence pole. I wasn't concerned about nerve damage as it was certain she would already be paralyzed, but I didn't want to risk severing any arteries that hadn't been already hit if I could avoid it. Once I had pulled her clear, I just had to lift her through the passenger's side window to get her out of the car. It occurred to me after I had her free that it would have been much easier if I had opened the passenger door first.

"Edward, be careful with her, her—" whatever he was going to say was cut short when he say the condition Bella was in. "Lets get her back to the house."

I took off through the trees, but I didn't hear Carlisle behind me. I understood the delay when I heard the groaning metal sound of him picking the car up off the fence post, and the thump of it landing on the forest floor. He must have been moving it out of sight of the road until we could figure out what to do with it. I heard a vague tinkle that I assumed was him getting rid of the glass on the road just before I ran out of range. I could still hear his thoughts, but I was far enough away that I couldn't hear what he was doing. I was crossing the lawn toward the front door when I heard him gaining on me.

I threw the door open and flew past Alice and Emmet who were chasing Jasper towards the door. _We will get rid of the rest of the evidence, you take care of Bella _Alice thought at me as she sprinted out the door. I flew up to Carlisle's office, and through the side door into his library, where he had all of his medical supplies should Bella have an accident. I laid her gently on the exam table as Carlisle was coming through the door.

"Edward we need to make a choice," he said closing the door behind him. "There is a chance I could repair the damage before she passes, but she will be in a wheel chair at the best, and on a respirator confined to a bed at the worst, excluding death of course."

"Change her," I said without a second though.

"Are you absolutely sure?" Carlisle said quietly. "I know this is what she wants, but you have been against this from the beginning."

"That was before I thought I lost her Carlisle," I sighed, kneeling down beside Bella. "I can't go through anything like that again. Please just change her."

"Of course Edward," he said softly as he crossed to the table.

Without hesitation he bit down on her throat. He moved on to bite her wrists and ankles just as he had done to me so many years ago. Then he stood back, wiping at his mouth before freezing like a statue. I could understand the reason behind his refusal to move. While Carlisle had never fed on a human, it did not mean he was not still tempted by blood. It took only moments for him to regain control but I could still hear the horribly guilty thoughts racing through his head. I put my hand on his shoulder in hopes of relieving some of his guilt.

"I should suture her wounds, it might help the process go a little faster, if the venom has lass to repair," he said in a sad voice crossing over to Bella once again.

"I will go find something else for her to wear so we can get rid of the bloody clothing," I said as I hurried out of the room, not sure if I meant to soothe him or myself.

I raced up to our room, rummaging through the closet for a long t-shirt to put her in, trying not to listen to Carlisle's thoughts while I did so. It felt like my heart was going to burst when I picture Bella's broken body, and I didn't want to see it anymore than I had to. I grabbed an old nightshirt that had somehow escape Alice's yearly purges of my wardrobe. It looked like I had probably had it since about 1930, and this was the first time I was actually glad to see it. We hadn't moved Bella's things yet, and this was the closest thing I had to a nightgown for her.

I hurried back to Carlisle's study, and quickly averted my eyes when I saw that he had stripped Bella's ruined clothes from her body. I had seen her intimately in our meadow, but the circumstances had been different. Seeing her like this felt wrong. I shook my head, and tried to force myself to see everything from a medical perspective before turning back to look at her.

The damage was… intense, but Carlisle was working quickly to repair what he could. I set the nightgown on the edge of the table, and grabbed the rubbing alcohol, and a washcloth from the bag of supplies that sat on the floor. I began quickly cleaning all of the blood off of Bella. It wouldn't help for any of us to be tempted by the scent, and it could be disastrous if Bella smelled the blood when she woke up as a raging new born. I finished at about the same time that Carlisle finished his stitches, and he held her limp body up while I slid the nightgown over her head.

Once we had her covered again, I picked her up of the hard metal table, and carried her swiftly up to our room. There was not much I could do to alleviate the pain of the transformation, but I wanted to make her as comfortable as possible. Carlisle pulled the blankets down to the foot of the bed, and I laid her down gently. I could see that her skin was starting to glisten, as her body tried to cool itself from the heat of the venom. It was a lost cause to try and fix it, but I could help myself from hurrying down to the kitchen to grab all of the ice that didn't get used at the wedding reception.

I threw it into to garbage bags, and race back up to my room, and set the bags against Bella's heated flesh. It didn't seem like it was helping much, but she hadn't started to cry out yet, so I could hold onto my hope that it was helping. I climbed onto the bed next to her, and leaned up against the skin that wasn't being touched by the bags of ice, and tried to cool her skin as best I could. I had been laying next to her for a few minutes when Alice came into the room.

"Edward that's not helping," she sighed tapping her forehead in explanation. "Besides, Emmet needs some help getting rid of what's left of the Volvo, and I need to change Bella into something that was made this century."


	28. Chapter 28

Some time later I became aware. I felt heat all around me, and I wondered if the car had burst into flames upon impact. I kept my eyes clenched closed as a pitiful whimper forced its way from me. A gentle shushing sound that followed made me realize that I couldn't possibly be in the Volvo anymore. With a sinking feeling I realized what the burning was, and that I must try to remain quite now. I didn't know that exact details, but clearly one of the Cullens had found me, and initiated the change. Which meant the crash must have been even worse than I though, if there was no hope of a human recovery.

I could feel subtle things through the fire, and it occurred to me that someone was changing my clothes. My annoyance with Alice was lost in yet another wave of blinding heat, as I bit down on the insides of my cheeks to keep from crying out. I felt the surface I was lying on shifting, and I wondered what was going on, but I didn't dare open my eyes. I was certain that if I opened my eyes I would see the flames that were engulfing me, and I was loose my battle to remain silent.

I couldn't gauge the time as it passed, but sometime later Edward joined me. I knew this because I could hear his quiet humming and I was so grateful for it. I instinctually knew that I was far enough into the change, that he could not simply sing me to sleep, but it soothed me in the only way I could be soothed during the flames. I could hear his gently breathing, and I tried to match mine to his. I was aware of how forced and patchy my breaths sounded in comparison to his, but trying to match his rhythm gave me something to think of other than the fire.

At some point later the fire grew weaker and stronger in the same moment. In my extremities, it grew so weak that it began to disappear. But the fire in my chest grew even hotter than I believed to be possible. I knew the end must be near, when I felt the delicious chill settle into my hands and feet. The heat climbed higher and higher in my heart until I couldn't bear it. My arched up off of whatever it was that I was laying on, and a pained cry finally burst from my throat. My heartbeat sped up until it sounded like a constant hum, and then it went silent, the heat disappearing instantly. I knew in that moment that my body had died, and my new life had begun. I slowly opened my eyes, surprised to find how close Edward's beautiful golden ones were to mine.

I had imagined that he would keep his distance from me, fearing some feral reaction from me. I was relieved that he did not fear the new me, and I pulled him into a fierce embrace, luxuriating in his wonderful smell. He smelled of cream and spice at the same time, and had I been human it would have been incredibly appetizing.

"Sorry about your car," I whispered, momentarily stunned by how musical my voice sounded.

"Love, I could care less about a piece of metal," he chuckled against my neck. "I'm just so glad to see your eyes open again."

"I suppose they look quite different now don't they?" I sighed.

"Well they are red now, but somehow they still suit you." Edward said quietly before kissing my neck gently. "And the color will begin to fade soon enough."

"How bad was it?" I asked, fearing his answer, but having a sick desire for the knowledge at the same time.

"The accident was not one a human would have survived. Your lungs were punctured.." he faltered. "And several major arteries were severed. We were worried you would bleed out before the venom could take hold."

"Were you the one to do it?" I asked trying to sound as if I didn't care.

"No, I did not trust myself with how profusely you were bleeding," Edward replied dipping his head to avoid eye contact. "We know from experience that I have trouble stopping, and you had already lost so much blood."

"Well… I guess its like Carlisle really is my dad then now I guess." I chuckled. "Or my maker… or sire… what term do you guys use, I feel like I am stealing lines form vampire novels."

"Well, there is a loose sort of technical description of source of origin, but many of our kind simply say maker." Edward explained. "Our coven says father, as we are more family than coven anyway."

"Do Alice and Jasper say father too, even though Carlisle isn't their maker?" I asked, intruiged.

"Jasper calls Maria his maker." Edward said in a strangely curt voice that I didn't understand. "Alice does not speak of the source of her transformation, as she had only recently learned how she came to be a vampire."

"I think I prefer father to maker," I breathed. "And of course if I am going to say father, perhaps I am glad that you didn't change me. It would be weird for you to be my husband… and my father."

"Yes, yes it would." Edward chuckled, the lightness returning to his features. "We should probably put aside the small talk for now however, you must be ravenous."

"I could go for some tasty fries," I laughed. "But honestly, my throat is a bit soar, is that the thirst?"

"Yes," Edward sighed. "It grows easier to handle over time, but the burn will never go away fully."

"Well then maybe I will have to stock up on cough drops," I joked as I jumped out of bed.

As soon as I had jumped from the bed, I saw what Alice had dressed me in and I growled. Edward had already been laughing, but his laughter increased quickly when he saw how frustrated I was with my outfit. Alice had dressed me in a short summer dress that was covered in flowers, and had no semblance of a sleeve what so ever.

"Alice, you expect me to hunt in a strapless dress?" I growled, knowing she would hear me from where ever she was in the house.

"Bella, I put you in sandals, you should be happy," her bubbly voice floated up the stairs with a bit of petulance in it.

"You are insane woman," I growled before turning to Edward and motioning for him to lead the way.

Edward nodded his head, and went quickly out of the room and down the stairs. I tore quickly after him, aware that even at my increased speed I could see the house with perfect detail. I could smell all of the other even though they were hidden behind closed doors. They smelled nearly as good as Edward. We raced out of the front door, which I accidentally broke when I tried to throw it shut behind me. I hoped Esme wouldn't be too mad, as I had only been trying to close it.

We tore across the lawn making a beeline for the stream. I was meaning to follow Edward, but I caught the scent of something appetizing, and altered my course to follow the stream further into the woods. I was running full tilt, the delicious smell pulling me forward. I could hear Edward chasing behind me, but it seemed my sudden change in direction had given me the advantage against his speed. As I drew nearer to my prey I was able to pick out a heartbeat. It was beating at an easy pace, telling me that my prey was no aware of me yet. When I could practically feel the heat radiating out towards me, I began to grow upset with Edward. He was awfully close, was he going to try and steal my meal?

I hissed at him over my shoulder, and pushed myself to go faster. As I came around a bend in the stream everything started to happen too quickly. I was splashing to the river before my brain full comprehended that I was splashing toward a boat. I was grabbing onto the soft pliable flesh of the fisherman before it even occurred to me that this was clearly a human. And my teeth were tearing into the flesh before I remembered why I might not want to do this. But then it was too late. As the warm a delicious blood flowed over my tongue I knew there was no hope of stopping myself. I felt a tugging at my arms that I realized in the back of my mind was Edward trying to stop me, but it was too late and I was too far gone. I drank until there was nothing left for the human to give to me. I dropped him back into the boat, and that was when I realized the true horror of the situation.

Laying prone in front of me, pale as a sheet, was my human father Charlie Swan. I stared into his blank eyes, and it felt as if my entire being was being torn to shreds. The guilt and self hatred hit me with such force that I fell to my knees, nearly sinking completely below the surface of the water. I wished that I could drown if I let my head fall below the surface, but I knew there was no point. Instead I just stopped. I stopped moving, I stopped breathing, I stopped thinking.

EPOV

I was leading Bella into the forest when I smelled it. But she reacted to the smell of a human before I could. She was tearing off in a different direction just as I realized the danger. I tore after her, but she had a head start, and the newborn blood to fuel her. I hope no hope of catching her, but I ran as fast as I could.

As I got within a hundred yard of her, I was able to smell the greater danger. I recognized the scent now that I was near to the source, and I knew that Bella was hunting her father before the boat came into view. I pushed myself even harder, hoping I could intercept her, but I didn't reach her until her teeth were already attached to his throat. I could see his blood dripping down her chin as she sucked greedily from her father's neck. I tugged at her, but it was of no use. She had a stronger than steel grip on him. I could hear his bones snapping beneath her fingers, but I knew she wouldn't hear it through the blood lust.

I knew when she had drained her father, because she threw him petulantly back into the boat. When his head lolled over one of the supports, she finally saw his face, and had she been human I knew her heart would have stopped. I could see her body go rigid as recognition filled her. She sank down into the water, and I pulled her into me. I realized that she did not feel me there, when she was completely unresponsive to my touch. I used one arm to pull her from the water, and the other to drag the boat with us, so I could beach it and keep Charlie's body from floating away.

I laid Bella gently in the grass, disturbed by her continued lack of movement. I was pulling the boat further onto the shore when my cell phone began to ring. I pulled it out of my pocket, and saw that Alice was calling. Anger grew in me at the idea that she saw this coming and said nothing, but I answered it none-the-less.

"Before you start yelling, I didn't see this happening in time to warn you." Alice rushed. "I saw it just a few seconds ago, and I can tell by the time on Charlie's wrist watch, that I am already to late."

"I don't know what to do," I replied in a gravelly voice that I didn't recognize.

"Just stay there," Alice instructed. "I am sending Emmet to take Charlie's body to his squad car and stage an accident, and Jasper is on his way to try and help you with Bella. The rest of us are packing."

"Packing?" I asked thickly.

"Yes," Alice sighed grimly. "The story of an accident should hold long enough for us to get out of the country, but it is highly unlikely it will take more than a few days for the Wolves to figure out what happens."

"Won't our disappearance tip them off?" I said, as my mind started to reengage.

"It will confirm their suspicions," Alice confirmed. "But my visions of our futures end by the weekend if we stay in Forks. This suggests that the pack kills us all Edward."

"Where are we going?" I asked as I heard Emmet crashing through the trees.

"Europe, most likely Italy," Alice said quickly. "As far as I can tell Sam will not let the pack leave the continent in their pursuit of our family."

"What's wrong with her," Emmet's gruff voice asked as he bent over to grab Charlie's limp body.

"I don't know," I answered Emmet at the same time that Alice did.

"Alice, I should go, Emmet is here now. " I sighed, waiting for her consent before clicking the phone shut.

"I'm going to go set up our alibi," Emmet said quietly, tossing Charlie over his shoulder. "Jasper was only a few minutes behind me."

Just as Emmet started to run off, Jasper burst through the trees. The strength of the calming wave coming off of him felt like it was going to make me fall asleep. I bore up against it, needing to keep my wits about me, as I sunk to the ground and pulled Bella into my lap.

"Stop Jasper, just help her," I groaned sleepily.

"Edward, I have been pouring emotion into her, but all that she reflects back is a void," Jasper whispered as he kneeled in front of me.

"Void?" I questioned.

"Yes," he explained. "Its like she isn't there right now. We need to get her out of here though, we can figure it out at home."

"What's the rush?" I sighed. "The damage has been done."

"When the wolves who are out for a run a few mile away hear the explosion of Charlie's car, they will come running. If they smell you here, we won't have the chance to run Edward." Jasper said quickly, sending a jolt of adrenaline my way. "We need to move now, while we still have the chance."

The adrenaline Jasper had pumped into me, pulled me out of the groggy near sleep I had been in, and I stood quickly, pulling Bella tightly against my chest. We ran back to the house as quickly as we could. The trees flew by, and for the first time they seemed blurry to me. My surroundings all seemed to be blurring together while I ran from what had just happened. I ran from the fear that filled my heart when I looked down at my frozen and lifeless mate. I ran from everything.

When we broke free of the tree I saw that Rosalie, Alice, Emmet, and Carlisle's cars were parked on the lawn. There doors were thrown open and Carlisle, Esme, and Rosalie were loading duffle bags and boxes into all of the available space that wouldn't have to hold on of us. Alice stood on the porch pacing quickly back and forth while she spoke swiftly on the phone booking a flight out of New York. I read in her mind that we would drive cross-country to board the flight in order to avoid the wolves catching us at a nearby airport.

"Edward, get into the backseat of the Mercedes," Jasper instructed as he moved towards the house. "We will have the last of our things packed within the next minute or two. Just get Bella into the car and stay with her."

I did as he said, just as I heard Emmet breaking though the trees. Emmet wasted no time in pushing Rosalie towards the jeep. Carlisle and Esme saw his urgency and climbed into the front of the Mercedes. I tuned in on Emmet's thoughts, and saw that he had heard the whole of the wolves immediately after the crash he caused. He grabbed the boat out of the water on his sprint away from the scene and crushed it to a pulp in hopes that the wolves might not figure out that Charlie made it too his fishing destination.

Jasper and Alice hurried out of the house with one last bag, and as the door closed I saw that all of the furniture had already been covered, and the house looked as if we had spent hours, possibly even days preparing to move. They jumped into the Porsche, and just like that all of the cars were pulling out of the driveway. We were flying down the highway, but all I saw was Bella's face. Her eyes were open, but they focused on nothing, and didn't appear to have any life in them. Her heart didn't beat, so I had no tale-tell sign that she was still living. There was no rise and fall of her chest because she no longer needed to breathe. The only reason I knew she was alive was because I could feel her electricity to tying me to her. I knew that as long as she lived I would continue to feel that spark. If she were to pass, I would feel that drowning depression I had felt while we were separated.


	29. Chapter 29

EPOV

We made a pit stop just outside of New York to pick up a wheelchair to put Bella in. I would have been perfectly fine carrying her, but Alice had predicted a nasty run in with TSA. Apparently the guard working was going to assume we were taking Bella out of the country against her will, and had drugged her in order to do so. Alice saw that if we put her in the chair the same guard would assume that Bella was mentally handicapped. With the chair no one would bat an eye when I picked her up to put her in her seat and buckle her in.

It was a good plan, but I couldn't connect to it. I simply followed what Alice told me to like a blind man. With Bella not mentally present I felt like a fog had crawled into my mind, like my body was trying to join her in this strange hibernation she had entered. So we loaded the wheelchair into the car, and drove to a shipping store nearby. I stayed with Bella in the car while the others took all but the bags that would be needed to keep up appearances that we were going on a vacation and had them packaged into a bunch of boxes and had them shipped off to where ever we were going.

We were joined back in the car after just a short while, and we finished what was left of the trek to New York International Airport. Jasper tapped on my shoulder to get my attention when the car had stopped, and I realized I needed to move. I pulled Bella delicately from the car, and set her in the wheelchair Jasper had gotten out of the back of the car. I turned her head to the side so it looked like she was leaning comfortably in the chair instead of sitting rigidly in an inhuman manner, and buckled the chest and lap belt that were provided with the chair hoping to encourage the idea of a mental handicap with the guard we would soon encounter.

We moved as a group into the airport, but I hardly noticed my surroundings. I was entirely focused on the frozen woman in the chair I was pushing. We stopped at the will call area and picked up our eight tickets. After that we had to go through security. The guard checked each of our passports, and wondered vaguely what they had shown them for Bella, as if responding to my silent question Alice thought about how grateful she was that Bella had already been in possession of a passport.

TSA gave us no hassle, so we continued on to the gate. We had timed our arrival well as the flight was boarding in ten minutes time. We only had to wait beside the other people for a little while, but it was long enough to have my chest tightening. There was news playing on one of the TVs that hung from the low ceiling, and one of the stations was talking about the tragic little west coast town who had lost their Chief of Police in an unexpected highway crash.

They were interview several people from the town, and I stood frozen hearing Jessica Stanley talk about how sad it was that he had died, and that Bella was still on her honeymoon with no idea he father had passed away. They cut to a new interview and my dead heart clenched. Jacob Black was on screen, and the average viewer might think he was just very sad, but I could see the anger burning in his eyes as he told the camera that he couldn't believe Charlie as such a good driver could have ended up in an accident like this, and that he hoped to one day find some answers. To any other viewer it probably sounded like a lost teenager, but I knew it was a threat. He was hoping we would see it, and he was telling us the pack knew this was no accident.

The plane started to board then I couldn't be more ready to get out of this country. The last thing we needed right now was a war with the pack. Especially with Bella unable to defend herself. Our numbers would be down with me having to run with her, and we might loose someone. It was best we fled the country where they were unlikely to follow us. We really needed to leave the continent to assure they didn't try to follow. They wouldn't be willing to cross an ocean, leaving their lands so unprotected, but they would certainly be willing to go into Canada or Mexico in their search for us. It was unlikely we would ever be able to return to Washington, we may be unlucky enough to have to stay out of America for at least a century.

I pushed Bella in the chair up to the counter with the others. We gave them our tickets and quietly boarded the plan. A flight attendant met me by my seat, and waited patiently as I moved Bella from the chair to the plane seat, and then she took the chair and put it in another section of the plane with a promise to bring it back as soon as the flight ended. I thanked her, and turned to buckle Bella into her seat before sitting down beside her. I whispered to Bella once the flight was in session, seeing if she would respond to me in anyway.

She remained the same stone wall she had been since she had discovered it was her father laying before her. I sighed quietly, and settled into my seat closing me eyes and latching on to the calming waves that Jasper was pushing my way from the seat across the aisle. I reach out to his mind and search for his reading on Bella, and I felt an unearthly chill filled me when I felt the numb vacant feeling radiating out of her. It was like death drenched in Novocain, it was a heady thing that I couldn't allow myself to touch without loosing my composure. I fled from inside Jasper's mind, and tried to focus only on the waves of calm.

-`-'-

The flight had a stop in London before we continued on to Italy but I stumbled through it blindly behind Jasper who seemed to have taken it upon himself to babysit Bella and me. We were only in the airport for a few minutes before we were seated on another plane, and it seemed like I blinked and we were disembarking in Italy. It was dark out so it must have been night, but I had no idea what time it was exactly, the time changes having nothing to do with it.

I loaded Bella into the chair one more time to push her out of the airport and load her into one of the two cars Alice had arranged for us before we had boarded any planes. They were two simple black rentals, that would probably be returned as soon as we had all of our things situated. We had quite a bit of settling to do with the house as well as our affairs. We would need to change our identities so the pack could not go looking for the name Cullen on the off chance they considered going international while seeking their revenge.

We moved the things that we had brought with us onto the plane into the house, and I put Bella back into the wheelchair to bring her into the house. We wouldn't have any furniture yet, and while it wouldn't be uncomfortable, I didn't have it in me to put Bella on the floor. A part of me would always think of her as the vulnerable and pliable human who would be pained by the hardness over the floor.

I wheeled her into the barren living room we would soon be filling with furniture, and sat beside her chair on the floor. The rest of the family came in, setting the numerous duffle bags and suitcases on the ground before sitting down in a circle that included Bella and I.

"Well, from what I can see, we should be safe," Alice said opening the floor for discussion. "The pack won't even think about checking Rosarno, Italy for our family."

"What made you choose Rosarno anyway," Jasper asked with his brow slightly quirked.

"I was flipping through the list of Italian cities in my mind while talking to the travel agent, and Rose was about to leave something unpacked that I wanted, so I ended up saying her name," Alice explained. "And then I just went with it and told the travel agent I meant Rosarno. I hadn't even though about what a great barrier the olive orchards on the edge of the town could create for us."

"Well, the location looks like it should work rather well," Carlisle said. "But we need to sort out some of the finer details. For example, whose surname will we become the new identifier for our coven?"

There were a few beats, it seemed no one wanted to be the one that suggested removing Cullen. I thought about whose name I would like to take if I were to give up Cullen, the name I had for such a long time. When I gave it the slightest though, the answer was easy.

"I think we should go with Platt," I said quietly from my position by Bella. "If we absolutely have to change our name, it should at least be to the name of our mother. Besides we haven't ever taken Esme's last name."

"Are there any other's for taking Platt as our name?" Carlisle asked, looking about the group.

Everyone except Esme nodded. She simply smiled softly as she looked at her children who nodded excitedly at the idea.

"Well that settles it then," Carlisle smiled. "Jasper will you do the honors of having our documentation changed tomorrow?"

"Of course," he said with a stiff nod. "I suppose the girls will be busy furnishing our new home over their next few days."

"Of course," Alice said with a small smile. "We need a bed for Bella straight away."

That turned our attention back to the frozen girl once more.

"Is there any change yet Jasper?" Esme asked sadly.

"No," he sighed. "She's just empty right now. I think she has retreated so far within her mind that any emotion she might actually be feeling is hidden from me."

"Is there nothing we can do?" I asked, embarrassed by how pained my voice sounded.

"We will start researching our options as soon as my books arrive," Carlisle assured me. "For now we can just make her comfortable, and hope that she comes out of it on her own."

"Can you see when she will wake up from this?" I asked Alice.

"Its all fuzzy right now," Alice said with a frown. "I think I can see her awake at some point, but it's hard to tell through the fog, and I can't tell when it is exactly."

"Well, let's pick rooms," I sighed. "I want to get Bella settled into her room. Maybe making her feel at home will encourage her to wake up."

"I have to tell you. It was hard to find a four bedroom villa in the Rosarno countryside on such short notice," Alice said in her most pretentious voice. "But I think this place will do."

I shook my head at her, and wheeled Bella through the house, looking around at each room, trying to decide which one Bella would like best. The entire house was one floor, and it sprawled across the land it was on in an open and airy layout. There was a courtyard, or piazza as the Italians would have called it in the center of the house, and each of the rooms had a window that looked in on it, and its flourishing garden. The rooms also had windows facing out of the house, so the view of the garden didn't factor very heavily into my decision.

One of the bedrooms looked out at the olive trees in the distance. Another looked out at the hilly countryside. A third looked upon the winding road that lead up to the house and the weaving through a valley. And the last room I checked looked out towards the coast far off in the distance. You could just make out the waves crashing on the shore. I stood in the room with the ocean view for a long time. I thought Bella might like to see the ocean, but it was so far away that she might not enjoy it as much. Maybe she would rather look at something a bit closer? In the end I pocked the room that looked at the olive trees, and I situated her chair facing the window on the off chance that she could see through the eyes that didn't seem to be seeing anything. When I had her placed, I kneeled on the ground before her a put my head in her lap, wishing desperately that her fingers would run through my hair, but they lay still on either side of my head instead.


	30. Chapter 30

**EPOV**

We had been at the new house for nearly a week, and I had not moved from my place at Bella's feet with my head in her lap. I was grateful that my monstrous nature kept me from needing to move because I could not have handled losing contact with her for moment. Her numb disposition had not changed not matter what the family tried. They had talked to her, cried in front of her, tried all sorts of loud and startling actions to try to shock her out of it, but nothing had worked.

Out of desperation Alice had darted out into the countryside, and snatched a wild ram from the mountainside and pulled him into the house bleating crazily in his fear. Once she stood before all of us and Bella she quickly snapped the creatures neck so it would not suffer, and then she used her wicked nails to tear the flesh open. The second the scent of blood hit the air I felt the change as it hit Jasper full force. The void had instantly disappeared and instead the suffocating guilt and sadness that was plaguing Bella became tangent in the air. My lungs felt crushed under the pressure of the pain that was radiating out of her. It was so powerful I could not even feel relief at her coming back to us.

My head snapped up to take her in, and I saw that she had turned her head to stare at the dead animal before her, and her eyes were full of the venom that would be tears if she were human. I then felt the monumental wave of calm that Jasper was attempting to send to Bella.

"Stop," she snapped harshly, and to my surprise as well as Jaspers his power withdrew immediately. "I deserve to feel this."

Her voice was almost unrecognizable with the grief that bled out of it as she stared at that animal bleeding out in front of her. And just when I thought Bella could surprise me no more, the venom that had pooled in her eyes began to fall. She was crying, when no other vampire could, Bella had found some way to cry. Her pain poured out of her eyes, as well as out of Jasper as he was forced to project it out of himself for relief.

I watched the venom burn a path down her face leaving the slightest tinge of purple before the tears crashed down to her clothes, searing them. I was unable to stop myself from reach out to touch them, feeling the burn on my fingers as I brushed them off of her cheeks only to have them replaced by new tears.

Now that the numbness had left her, she was simply sobbing, and it wrenched at me to feel her agony, but I knew I could do nothing for her. There was nothing I could do or say that would take away the guilt and pain she was feeling for having killed her father.

-`-'-

-`-'-

**BPOV**

I wasn't sure when exactly I had become aware once more, but suddenly my senses filled with the smell of blood, and with a crushing weight I was forced to think of what that smell reminded me of. The blood I was smelling was not nearly as mouth watering as the scent that had driven me to commit such a heinous act, but it still caused venom to pool in my mouth.

I stared through blurry eyes at the creature before me and the guilt was crushing my lungs. I should have been grateful that I was not human so the lack of air could not hurt me, but instead I felt I finally understood why Edward had not wanted me to be like him. He had been right that to be a vampire was to be a monster. My existence was wrong.

I felt a flicker of calm and recognized that Jasper was trying to influence my emotions. I felt anger well up in me at that. I deserved to feel horrible right now. It was my penance.

"Stop." I demanded of him, and the wave of emotion immediately disappeared for which I was thankful. "I deserve to feel this."

The room stayed quiet, not one moving as they watched me. I felt pain in my cheeks, and when Edward reached up to brush them I realized that some how, impossibly, I was crying. I thought I was not supposed to be able to cry? I allowed the tears to over take me. With each sob some of the guilt broke loose, lightening the tightness in my chest. I knew this horrible feeling inside of me would never truly go away, but releasing it through tears helped more than I was willing to admit.

"I'm so sorry daddy," I cried into Edward's shoulder as he pulled me against him on the floor and rocked me gently as I cried.

I smelled singed fabric and somewhere in the back of my mind I understood that my venom was literally burning his shirt as it fell from my eyes I but I couldn't find it in me to stop. The tears just continued to fall for an immeasurable amount of time. The sun set around us and I continued to cry. The darkness held for hours, and then the sun rose once more as the tears were still falling from my eyes.

As the day wore on I felt the tears begin to slow. I couldn't say that I truly felt better, but I felt like maybe I could function. My eyes began to dry, and I was content to just let Edward rock me and hum into my hair. When the tears finally stopped I could hear the family leaving the room. They had seemed transfixed by the strangeness of a vampire crying, but now it seemed they felt they were intruding on a private moment so they took their leave.

"I ruined your shirt," I whispered to Edward as I nuzzled against his exposed flesh where an entire patch of shirt was simply gone.

"It doesn't matter," he said in a rough voice that said more about his emotions than he ever would.

"Will he have a funeral?" I asked him quietly.

"Yes," Edward said in a sure voice. "The pack will have seen to that I am sure of it. His passing made the national news, and we saw that the entire pack was there at a candle light vigil that took place the next day."

I almost started crying again at that.

"Do you think he will ever be able to forgive me, where ever he is?" I asked, but I wasn't sure if I was asking Edward or God.

"I think he will," Edward said quietly. "I think when he looks down upon you, he will know that you never meant to do it, and that you love him so very much."

-`-'-

Edward and I stayed together in our quiet bubble like that for several days before I felt ready to face the family once more. All of them reassured me of their faith in me, and tried to relieve my guilt for what I had done, but it was settled deep into my heart. I sometimes saw pain in Jasper's eyes, and I was sure he was feeling the pain that was bubbling beneath the surface of my forced smiles, but he did not try to influence my emotions again. I wondered why he had listened to me so quickly when I told him to stop when he never had for anyone else in the past, but I did not ask about it.

After we had been in Italy for three weeks and I had not ventured outside the walls of the house, the demands that I go hunting because a constant annoyance. I could feel the thirst burning in my throat terribly, but I could not bring myself to put another human in danger ever again. I did not feel I deserved the relief of the burn, and if I had to be hungry for the rest of my evil existence then I would take that punishment for what I had done to my father.

Soon it had been a month and a half and I could sense that Edward was growing desperate enough that he was contemplating physically forcing me to hunt, but I would not relent. I felt as if I was going insane as the thirst plagued me, but I would not give in. I was grateful that we lived away from civilization, but my mouth filled with venom every time one of the others returned from a hunt and I could smell the traces of blood on them.

When it moved into the second month and I had not hunted Edward began to refuse to hunt until I would go. He was adamant no matter how much I fought with him, and while I recognized what he was doing I seriously considered going hunting. I knew he was playing on my need to care for him to make me go out, but I fought hard to keep my resolve.

When it had been three months, and I found myself hallucinating that Charlie was following me around the house I finally snapped. After having a heated conversation with my imagined father about why I deserved to be plagued with guilt I stormed outside the house we that evil pixie Alice was waiting for me. She had another one of those damn wild rams, and the second she saw me she spilled its blood. I could not stop myself then. I was so terribly thirsty and it was right there. The second I attacked the poor animal the illusion of my father disappeared. I felt a sense of relief flood me as the hunger was temporarily sate, but at the same time I felt the terrible guilt that I was killing another creature.

How could I keep going on in this life if I was going to feel so miserable for the rest of eternity. My forever with Edward was supposed to be a fairy tale ending, but it felt more like a horror film. Edward had a haunted look in his eyes every time I looked at him, and I could hardly stand to make eye contact with him because of it. I still loved him with every fiber of my being, but I no loner felt worthy of the love he felt for me. I didn't feel worthy of anything other than suffering.


	31. Chapter 31

I sat beside Edward looking out the window that looked into the courtyard. I could sense his discontent but I couldn't find it in me to try and soothe him. I wanted nothing more than to tell him that I couldn't do this anymore. I still loved him, but I didn't love this life. I didn't think I could go on with this life knowing what I had done.

We had talked once about how it would be basically impossible for a vampire to commit suicide, and that did nothing to make me feel better. I didn't want to admit even to myself that I was thinking about it, but the fact remained that I was desperate to be rid of this life. Perhaps Edward's sadness came from him being able to sense it in me.

"Bella," Edward said in a rough voice pulling my attention away from the window. "Please don't."

"I'm not doing anything," I whispered to him.

"Every time you consider an option for ending your life I can see the future play out in Alice's mind," he said in a strangled cry.

"I never decided to do it," I hedged, unable to lie and say I hadn't been considering it.

"Please don't even think about it," he begged me.

"Edward, I don't think I can do this anymore," I breathed, letting the pain bleed into my voice. "I can't live with this guilt."

"I can't live without you Bella," he pled. "Please let Jasper help with the guilt."

"No," I snapped. "I deserve to feel this way."

"Bella," he sighed, his pain evident on his very breathe. "Please."

"I can't," I sighed, but I leaned into him and let him give me some comfort with his embrace. "And Alice, stop looking into my future."

I could only hope she would listen. I didn't need her adding to Edward's stress when I hadn't even made a decision about what I wanted to do. Perhaps she would be on the same wave length with Jasper, and be quick to agree to my demand. It was hard to find hope that it would work out that way through my depression.

-`-'-

I went out for a hunt with Edward a few days later so Alice would not decide to drag another wild animal up to the house. I could feel the burn in my throat, but at the same time I was repulsed by my hunger to the point that it faded out of my mind. I jogged through the trees behind Edward not daring to breath. When he went into a crouch, I chanced the tiniest of a sniff so I would know what we were hunting and where it was. It smelled like the same old rams, and it was just off to the east. I dropped into a crouch of my own and went after them.

Edward and I pounced simultaneously on the unsuspecting animals. I quickly snapped the neck of my prey, and bit into its flesh. I pulled greedily at the blood, while berating myself for my disgusting thirst. When the animal ran dry I let it fall to the ground and simply watched Edward as he drained a second and third animal. I knew he would want me to eat more, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. Looking down at the broken animal at my feet just reminded me of what my father had looked like laying in the bottom of his boat after I had killed him.

With that picture still in my head I turned on my heel and ran back to the house. I knew Edward would follow me but I didn't care, I just wanted to hide away in our bedroom once more and be left alone.

-`-'-

**EPOV**

After our hunt Bella had retreated to our bedroom once more and no one could get her to come out. She didn't talk much while I sat with her, and I felt her slipping away from me. I pleaded with Alice to look into her future and see when this would end, but somehow Alice was unable to. She developed a terrible headache anytime she tried to search for Bella's future. Jasper had the same issue if he tried to influence her emotions. It seemed she had some sort of power to enforce what she told others to do, but there was no way for us to try to understand it better if she was not going to interact with her.

I was standing in the living room watching Esme place and move a pair of kerosene lamps around the room trying to find the perfect place when Bella came out of our bedroom and joined us. She didn't say anything, but simply walked over to the breakfast nook and took the lighter from beside the two scented candles that sat there. I watched in confusion as she held it in her hand and started to walk over to Esme.

Esme set the lamps down and turned with the intention of asking Bella how she was doing, but she simply stared at her in confusion when she picked up the lamp that had just been set down and started walking towards the couch. I thought for a second she was going to light the lamp, and perhaps set it on the coffee table, but as I saw the resolved look on her face, I didn't need Alice's gift to see what was about to happen.

"Bella?" I said trying to get her to pay attention to me and not continue with what she was doing.

She kept moving as if she didn't hear me. In a lighting fast movement she broke the top off of the lamp, and up ended it pouring the kerosene out onto the couch. She covered the entire sofa as she emptied the lamps and then simply let it drop to the floor. The shattering glass brought the rest of the family hurrying into the room.

"Stay back," she demanded, and everyone was forced to come to a halt. I could hear all of their thoughts panicking as they tried to move towards her but were unable to move and their heads filled with pain. I felt the same pain in my own head as I tried to move to the side of my wife. I managed a step forward and then nearly buckled with the intense pain it caused.

Bella clicked the lighter and flame danced from the end. She leaned over, and set the couch aflame. When it was burning brightly she set the lighter down on the table, and spared us one quick sad look.

"I'm sorry. I love you all, but I can't do this anymore," she whispered, but we all heard her clearly.

I did my best to ignore the pain in my head as I forced my body to move forward, but I couldn't move fast enough. Time seemed to slow down as Bella lowered her body onto the couch. Purple fumes began to fill the room and the sickly sweet of burning vampire flesh filled the air. I pushed myself forward the pain growing more and more strong with each step.

I finally reached the couch, and I could see it was already to late. Her entire torso had turned to ash, and the rest of her was being rapidly consumed by the bright kerosene flames. My heart felt as if it were being ripped from my body, and I could only think of one thing that would end the pain. Without stopping to think about what it would mean, I joined Bella on the couch, crying out for her, and trying not to feel the horrible pain of the flames attacking my body. It was far worse than the imagined flames of my change. This was actual fire, and it was devouring me. There was pain, so much pain, and then there was simply nothing. I fell into a void, that seemed to never end until it did. When it did end I found myself standing before my final judgment, but I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw that Bella was standing beside me awaiting our fate. I couldn't be sure where we would be going from here, but I was content to stand among the bright starlight that surrounded us with Bella for the rest of eternity it if meant she would be freed of the pain that had plagued her on earth.


	32. Chapter 32

I hope you won't all be annoyed with me for posting a chapter that is not really a chapter. As people who have subscribed to the story, I'm assuming you will be interested in additional content. I have created a facebook page that has pictures and music that go along with the stories. I hope you will check it out.

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